A I/ITTLB 


TOUR  IN 


^:5>-HBNKr  JAMBS 


ARCHITECTOfife 


A  Poflefflon  of 
Grace  W  and 
IraW  Hoover 


A  LITTLE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE 


BY 


HENRY  JAMES 


c  c  t  c  • 
c  c  •  c  • 


OLD   STREKT,    DIJON 


A  LITTLE  TOUR 
IN  FRANCE 

BY  HENRY 
JAMES 

WITH    ILLUSTRATIONS 
BY    JOSEPH     PENNELL 


BOSTON  AND    NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND   COMPANY 
(2Cbe  Bilicrsibc  press,  Cambrit»0e 

MDCCCCI 


ARCHITECTURE 


COPYRIGHT,    1SS4    AND    I9OO,    BY    HENRY  JAMES 
COPYRIGHT,    1900,    HY   HOUGHTON,    MIFFLIN    &    CO. 


"^c  :?g 


PREFACE 

THE  notes  presented  in  this  volume  were 
gathered,  as  will  easily  be  perceived,  a  num- 
ber of  years  ago,  and  on  an  expectation  not  at  that 
time  answered  by  the  event,  and  were  then  pub- 
lished in  the  United  States.  The  expectation  had 
been  that  they  should  accompany  a  series  of 
drawings,  and  they  themselves  were  altogether 
governed  by  the  pictorial  spirit.  They  made,  and 
they  make  in  appearing  now,  after  a  considerable 
interval  and  for  the  first  time,  in  England,  no  pre- 
tension to  any  other ;  they  are  impressions,  im- 
mediate, easy,  and  consciously  limited ;  if  the 
written  word  may  ever  play  the  part  of  brush  or 
pencil,  they  are  sketches  on  "drawing-paper"  and 


M603620 


iv  PREFACE 

nothing  more.  From  the  moment  the  principle 
of  selection  and  expression,  with  a  tourist,  is  not 
the  delight  of  the  eyes  and  the  play  of  fancy,  it 
should  be  an  energy  in  every  way  much  larger; 
there  is  no  happy  mean,  in  other  words,  I  hold, 
between  the  sense  and  the  quest  of  the  picture, 
and  the  surrender  to  it,  and  the  sense  and  the 
quest  of  the  constitution,  the  inner  springs  of 
the  subject  —  springs  and  connections  social, 
economic,  historic. 

One  must  really  choose,  in  other  words,  between 
the  benefits  of  the  perception  of  surface  —  a  per- 
ception, when  fine,  perhaps  none  of  the  most 
frequent  —  and  those  of  the  perception  of  very 
complex  underlying  matters.  If  these  latter  had 
had,  for  me,  to  be  taken  into  account,  my  pages 
would  not  have  been  collected.  At  the  time  of 
their  original  appearance  the  series  of  illustrations 
to  which  it  had  been  their  policy  to  cling  for  coun- 
tenance and  company  failed  them,  after  all,  at  the 
last  moment,  through  a  circumstance  not  now  on 
record;  and  they  had  suddenly  to  begin  to  live 
their  little  life  without  assistance.  That  they  have 
seemed  able  in  any  degree  still  to  prolong  even  so 
modest  a  career  might  perhaps  have  served  as  a 
reason  for  leaving  them  undisturbed.  In  fact, 
however,  I  have  too  much  appreciated  —  for  any 
renewal  of  inconsistency — the  opportunity  of  grant- 


PREFACE  V 

ing  them  at  last,  in  an  association  with  Mr.  Pen- 
nell's  admirable  drawings,  the  benefit  they  have 
always  lacked.  The  little  book  thus  goes  forth 
finally  as  the  picture-book  it  was  designed  to  be. 
Text  and  illustrations  are,  altogether  and  alike, 
things  of  the  play  of  eye  and  hand  and  fancy  — 
views,  head-pieces,  tail-pieces  ;  through  the  artist's 
work,  doubtless,  in  a  much  higher  degree  than  the 
author's. 

But  these  are  words  enough  on  a  minor  point. 
Many  things  come  back  to  me  on  reading  my 
pages  over  —  such  a  world  of  reflection  and  emo- 
tion as  I  can  neither  leave  unmentioned  nor  yet, 
in  this  place,  weigh  them  down  with  the  full  ex- 
pression of.  Difficult  indeed  would  be  any  full 
expression  for  one  who,  deeply  devoted  always  to 
the  revelations  of  France,  finds  himself,  late  in 
life,  making  of  the  sentiment  no  more  substantial, 
no  more  direct  record  than  this  mere  revival  of  an 
accident.  Not  one  of  these  small  chapters  but 
suggests  to  me  a  regret  that  I  might  not,  first  or 
last,  have  gone  farther,  penetrated  deeper,  spoken 
oftener  —  closed,  in  short,  more  intimately  with  the 
great  general  subject ;  and  I  mean,  of  course,  not 
in  such  a  form  as  the  present,  but  in  many  an- 
other, possible  and  impossible.  It  all  comes  back, 
doubtless,  this  vision  of  missed  occasions  and 
delays  overdone,  to  the  general  truth  that  the  ob- 


vi  PREFACE 

server,  the  en j oyer,  may,  before  he  knows  it,  be 
practically  too  far  in  for  all  that  free  testimony 
and  pleasant,  easy  talk  that  are  incidental  to  the 
earlier  or  more  detached  stages  of  a  relation. 
There  are  relations  that  soon  get  beyond  all 
merely  showy  appearances  of  value  for  us.  Their 
value  becomes  thus  private  and  practical,  and  is 
represented  by  the  process  —  the  quieter,  mostly, 
the  better  —  of  absorption  and  assimilation  of 
what  the  relation  has  done  for  us.  For  persons 
thus  indebted  to  the  genius  of  France  —  however, 
in  its  innumerable  ways,  manifested  —  the  profit 
to  be  gained,  the  lesson  to  be  learnt,  is  almost  of 
itself  occupation  enough.  They  feel  that  they 
bear  witness  by  the  intelligent  use  and  application 
of  their  advantage,  and  the  consciousness  of  the 
artist  is  therefore  readily  a  consciousness  of  pious 
service.  He  may  repeatedly  have  dreamt  of  some 
such  happy  combination  of  mood  and  moment  as 
shall  launch  him  in  a  profession  of  faith,  a  demon- 
stration of  the  interesting  business  ;  he  may  have 
had  inner  glimpses  of  an  explicit  statement,  and 
vaguely  have  sketched  it  to  himself  as  one  of  the 
most  candid  and  charming  ever  drawn  up  ;  but 
time,  meanwhile,  has  passed,  interruptions  have 
done  their  dismal  work,  the  indirect  tribute,  too, 
has  perhaps,  behind  the  altar,  grown  and  grown ; 
and  the  reflection  has  at  all  events  established 


PREFACE  vii 

itself  that  honor  is  more  rendered  by  seeing  and 
doing  one's  work  in  the  light  than  by  brandishing 
the  torch  on  the  house-tops.  Curiosity  and  admi- 
ration have  operated  continually,  but  with  as  little 
waste  as  they  could.  The  drawback  is  only  that 
in  this  case,  to  be  handsomely  consequent,  one 
would  perhaps  rather  not  have  appeared  to  cele- 
brate any  rites.  The  moral  of  all  of  which  is  that 
those  here  embodied  must  pass,  at- the  best,  but 

for  what -they  are  worth. 

H.J. 
August  9,  1900. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTORY        I 

I.    TOURS 3 

II.    TOURS  :    THE   CATHEDRAL I4 

III.  tours:    SAINT    MARTIN 1 9 

IV.  BLOIS     .     '^ 30 

V.    CHAMBORD 44 

VI.    AMBOISE 59 

VII.    CHENONCEAUX 68 

VIII.    AZAY-LE-RIDEAU 81 

IX.    LANGEAIS 86 

X.    LOCHES 91 

XI.    BOURGES .'     .      .      .  98 

XII.    BOURGES:   JACQUES    CCEUR HO 

XIII.  LE   MANS 121 

XIV.  ANGERS 129 

XV.    NANTES 136 

XVI.    LA   ROCHELLE I46 

XVII.     POITIERS 156 

XVIII.    ANGOULEME 166 

XIX.    TOULOUSE 174 

XX.    TOULOUSE:   THE   CAPITOL 180 

XXI.    TOULOUSE:    SAINT-SERNIN 184 

XXII.     CARCASSONNE I9I 

XXIII.  CARCASSONNE 200 

XXIV.  NARBONNE 2o8 

XXV.    MONTPELLIER 21 7 


X  CONTENTS 

XXVI.  THE    PONT   DU    GAKD 227 

XXVII.  AIGUES-MORTES 234 

XXVIII.  NiMES 240 

XXIX.  TARASCON 249 

XXX.  ARLES .  .  258 

XXXI.  ARLES  :   THE   MUSEUM 267 

XXXII.  LES   BAUX 272 

XXXIII.  AVIGNON 285 

XXXIV.  VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON 294 

XXXV.  VAUCLUSE 30I 

XXXVI.  ORANGE 312 

XXXVII.  MACON 320 

XXXVIII.  BOURG-EN-BRESSE 327 

XXXIX.  BEAUNE 337 

XL.  DIJON 342 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

PACE 

An  Old  Street  in  Dijon Frontispiece 

Macon i 

Tours  from  the  River 3 

The  House  of  Balzac^  Tours 10 

The  Cathedral^  Tours 16 

The  Towers  of  Saint  Martin^  Tours 20 

The  Chateau  of  Blois 30 

B  Lois  from  the  Loire 32 

Chaumont  from  the  Middle  of  the  Bridge   ....  59 

The  Chdteau  of  Amhoise 60 

Chaumont  from  the  River (^ 

The  Chdteau  of  Chenonceaux 70 

The  Chdteau  of  A2ay-le-Rideau,from  the  Avenue  .  81 

The  Chdteau  of  Azay-le-Rideau 82 

Langeais  from  the  Loire 86 

The  Chdteau  of  Langeais 88 

Loches  from  the  Distajtce 91 

An  Old  Town  Gate,  Loches 94 

Doorway  of  the  House  offacqiies  Cocur,  Bourges  .  98 
The  Cathedral  of  Bourges,  the  West  Front    .     .     .     .104 

Courtyard  of  the  House  of  facques  Conur    .     .     .     .110 

The  House  of  facques  Coeur^  Bourges 112 

The  Hotel  Lallemont^  Bourges 118 

Le  Mans 121 

Le  Mans  Cathedral :  Nave,  from  Transept   .     .     .     .126 

The  Chdteau  of  Angers 129 


xii     LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 

Angers  from  the  Bridge 130 

Old  Timbered  Houses^  Angers 134 

Nantes 138 

La  Rochelle,  the  Tour  de  la  Lanterne 146 

The  HStel  de  Ville  and  Arcades,  La  Rochelle  .  .  .148 
The  Tour  de  VHorloge^  La  Roc  he  lie  .     .     .     o     .     .     .150 

Poitiers,  the  Cathedral 158 

The  Church  of  Sainte  Radegonde,  Poitiers     .    .    .     .162 

Bordeaux 166 

The  Quays  of  Bordeaux 1 70 

The  Garonne  at  Toulouse 1 74 

The  Hotel  d''Assezat,  Toulouse 176 

The  Cathedral  of  Saint-Sernin,  Toulouse  .     .     .     .184 

Trajisept  of  Saint-Sernin,  Toulouse 186 

Carcassonne 194 

Carcassonne,  the  Two  Towns 202 

The  Fish  Market,  Narbonne 208 

Narbonne,  the  Cathedral  and  the  Hdtel  de  Ville  .  .214 
The  Aqueduct,  Montpellier 224 

The  Pont  du  Card 227 

On  the  Pont  du  Gard 230 

Aigues-Mortes 236 

The  Cathedral,  Nhnes 238 

The  Maison  Carrie,  Nhnes 240 

The  Garden  at  the  Roman  Baths,  Nimes 242 

The  Roman  Arena,  Nimes 244 

Saint  Trophime,  Aries,  Nave,  looking  cast  ....  260 
The  Roman  Theatre,  Aries 264 

Sai7it  Trophime,  Aries,  the  Porch 267 

Church  of  Saint  Trophime,  Aries,  the  Cloisters  .     .     .  268 

The  Abbey  of  Mont-Maj our 272 

The  Broken  Bridge  of  Saint-B6nazet     .     .     .     .     .  285 


LIST   OF    ILLUSTRATIONS    xiii 

Avignon 286 

Villeneuve-les-Avigno?i 294 

Headspring  of  the  Sorgues,  Vaucluse 301 

The  Arch  of  Triumph^  Orange 314 

The  Roman  Theatre^  Orange    \ 318 

Lyons 322 

The  Church  of  Brou 332 

The  Hopital-Saint-E sprit,  Beanne 338 

Public  Garden,  Dijon 344 


A  LITTLE  TOUR  IN  FRANCE 


INTRODUCTORY 

THOUGH  the  good  city  of  Paris  appears  to 
be  less  in  fashion  than  in  other  days  with 
those  representatives  of  our  race  —  not  always, 
perhaps,  acknowledged  as  the  soundest  and  stiffest 

—  curious  of  foreign  opportunity  and  addicted  to 
foreign  sojourns,  it  probably  none  the  less  remains, 
true  that  such  frequentations  of  France  as  may 
be  said  still  to  flourish  among  us  have  as  much 
as  ever  the  wondrous  capital,  and  the  wondrous 
capital  alone,  for  their  object.  The  taste  for 
Paris,  at  all  events,  is  —  or  perhaps  I  should  say 
was,  alluding  as  I  do,  I  fear,  to  a  vanished  order 

—  a  taste  by  itself ;  singularly  little  bound  up,  of 
necessity,  with  such  an  interest  in  the  country  at 
large  as  would  be  implied  by  an  equal  devotion,  in 
other  countries,  to  other  capitals.  Putting  aside 
the  economic  inducement,  which  may  always  op- 
erate, and  limiting  the  matter  to  the  question  of 
free  choice,  it  is  sufficiently  striking  that  the  free 


2     A    LITTLfe   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

chooser  would  have  to  be  very  fond  of  England  to 
quarter  himself  in  London,  very  fond  of  Germany 
to  quarter  himself  in  Berlin,  very  fond  of  America 
to  quarter  himself  in  New  York.  It  had,  on  the 
other  hand,  been  a  common  reflection  for  the 
author  of  these  light  pages  that  the  fondness  for 
France  (throughout  the  company  of  strangers 
more  or  less  qualified)  was  oddly  apt  to  feed  only 
on  such  grounds  for  it  as  made  shift  to  spread 
their  surface  between  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  and 
the  Gymnase  Theatre :  as  if  there  were  no  good 
things  in  the  doiix  pays  that  could  not  be  har- 
vested in  that  field.  It  matters  little  how  the 
assumption  began  to  strike  him  as  stupid,  espe- 
cially since  he  himself  had  doubtless  equally  shared 
in  the  guilt  of  it.  The  light  pages  in  question  are 
but  the  simple  record  of  a  small  personal  effort  to 
shake  it  off.  He  took,  it  must  be  confessed,  no 
extraordinary  measures ;  he  merely  started,  one 
rainy  morning  in  mid-September,  for  the  charming 
little  city  of  Tours,  where  he  felt  that  he  might  as 
immediately  as  anywhere  else  see  it  demonstrated 
that,  though  France  might  be  Paris,  Paris  was  by 
no  means  P'rance.  The  beauty  of  the  demonstra- 
tion —  quite  as  prompt  as  he  could  have  desired 
—  drew  him  considerably  further,  and  his  modest 
but  eminently  successful  adventure  begot,  as  aids 
to  amused  remembrance,  a  few  informal  notes. 


life 


^^-'=:rs-i?i^^2^-^v-:: 


TOURS 


I  AM  ashamed  to  begin  with  saying  that  Tou- 
raine  is  the  garden  of  France ;  that  remark 
has  long  ago  lost  its  bloom.  The  town  of  Tours, 
however,  has  something  sweet  and  bright,  which 
suggests  that  it  is  surrounded  by  a  land  of  fruits. 
It  is  a  very  agreeable  little  city ;  few  towns  of  its 
size  are  more  ripe,  more  complete,  or,  I  should 
suppose,  in  better  humor  with  themselves  and 
less  disposed  to  envy  the  responsibilities  of  bigger 
places.  It  is  truly  the  capital  of  its  smiling  pro- 
vince ;  a  region  of  easy  abundance,  of* good  living, 
of  genial,  comfortable,  optimistic,  rather  indolent 


4     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

opinions.  Balzac  says  in  one  of  his  tales  that  the 
real  Tourangeau  will  not  make  an  effort,  or  dis- 
place himself  even,  to  go  in  search  of  a  pleasure ; 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  understand  the  sources  of 
this  amiable  cynicism.  He  must  have  a  vague 
conviction  that  he  can  only  lose  by  almost  any 
change.  Fortune  has  been  kind  to  him  :  he  lives 
in  a  temperate,  reasonable,  sociable  climate,  on 
the  banks  of  a  river  which,  it  is  true,  sometimes 
floods  the  country  around  it,  but  of  which  the 
ravages  appear  to  be  so  easily  repaired  that  its 
aggressions  may  perhaps  be  regarded  (in  a  region 
where  so  many  good  things  are  certain)  merely 
as  an  occasion  for  healthy  suspense.  He  is  sur- 
rounded by  fine  old  traditions,  religious,  social, 
architectural,  culinary ;  and  he  may  have  the  sat- 
isfaction of  feeling  that  he  is  French  to  the  core. 
No  part  of  his  admirable  country  is  more  charac- 
teristically national.  Normandy  is  Normandy,  Bur- 
gundy is  Burgundy,  Provence  is  Provence ;  but 
Touraine  is  essentially  France.  It  is  the  land  of 
Rabelais,  of  Descartes,  of  Balzac,  of  good  books  and 
good  company,  as  well  as  good  dinners  and  good 
houses.  George  Sand  has  somewhere  a  charming 
passage  about  the  mildness,  the  convenient  qual- 
ity, of  the  physical  conditions  of  central  France  — 
"son  climat  souple  et  chaud,  ses  pluies  abon- 
dantes  et  courtes."     In  the  autumn  of  1882  the 


TOURS  5 

rains  perhaps  were  less  short  than  abundant ;  but 
when  the  days  were  fine  it  was  impossible  that 
anything  in  the  way  of  weather  could  be  more 
charming.  The  vineyards  and  orchards  looked 
rich  in  the  fresh,  gay  light ;  cultivation  was  every- 
where, but  everywhere  it  seemed  to  be  easy. 
There  was  no  visible  poverty ;  thrift  and  success 
presented  themselves  as  matters  of  good  taste. 
The  white  caps  of  the  women  glittered  in  the  sun- 
shine, and  their  well-made  sabots  clicked  cheer- 
fully on  the  hard,  clean  roads.  Touraine  is  a  land 
of  old  chateaux,  —  a  gallery  of  architectural  spe- 
cimens and  of  large  hereditary  properties.  The 
peasantry  have  less  of  the  luxury  of  ownership 
than  in  most  other  parts  of  France ;  though  they 
have  enough  of  it  to  give  them  quite  their  share 
of  that  shrewdly  conservative  look  which,  in  the 
little  chaffering  place  of  the  market-town,  the 
stranger  observes  so  often  in  the  wrinkled  brown 
masks  that  surmount  the  agricultural  blouse. 
This  is,  moreover,  the  heart  of  the  old  French 
monarchy ;  and  as  that  monarchy  was  splendid 
and  picturesque,  a  reflection  of  the  splendor  still 
glitters  in  the  current  of  the  Loire.  Some  of 
the  most  striking  events  of  French  history  have 
occurred  on  the  banks  of  that  river,  and  the 
soil  it  waters  bloomed  for  awhile  with  the  flower- 
ing of  the  Renaissance.     The  Loire  gives  a  great 


6     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

"  style "  to  a  landscape  of  which  the  features 
are  not,  as  the  phrase  is,  prominent,  and  carries 
the  eye  to  distances  even  more  poetic  than  the 
green  horizons  of  Touraine.  It  is  a  very  fitful 
stream,  and  is  sometimes  observed  to  run  thin 
and  expose  all  the  crudities  of  its  channel,  —  a 
great  defect  certainly  in  a  river  which  is  so  much 
depended  upon  to  give  an  air  to  the  place  it 
waters.  But  I  speak  of  it  as  I  saw  it  last ;  full, 
tranquil,  powerful,  bending  in  large  slow  curves, 
and  sending  back  half  the  light  of  the  sky.  No- 
thing can  be  finer  than  the  view  of  its  course 
which  you  get  from  the  battlements  and  terraces 
of  Amboise.  As  I  looked  down  on  it  from  that 
elevation  one  lovely  Sunday  morning  through  a 
mild  glitter  of  autumn  sunshine,  it  seemed  the  very 
model  of  a  generous,  beneficent  stream.  The  most 
charming  part  of  Tours  is  naturally  the  shaded 
quay  that  overlooks  it,  and  looks  across  too  at 
the  friendly  faubourg  of  Saint  Symphorien  and  at 
the  terraced  heights  which  rise  above  this.  In- 
deed, throughout  Touraine  it  is  half  the  charm  of 
the  Loire  that  you  can  travel  beside  it.  The  great 
dyke  which  protects  it,  or  protects  the  country 
from  it,  from  Blois  to  Angers,  is  an  admirable 
road ;  and  on  the  other  side  as  well  the  highway 
constantly  keeps  it  company.  A  wide  river,  as 
you  follow  a  wide  road,  is  excellent  company ;  it 
brightens  and  shortens  the  way. 


TOURS  7 

The  inns  at  Tours  are  in  another  quarter,  and 
one  of  them,  which  is  midway  between  the  town 
and  the  station,  is  very  good.  It  is  worth  men- 
tioning for  the  fact  that  every  one  belonging  to  it 
is  extraordinarily  polite  —  so  unnaturally  polite  as 
at  first  to  excite  your  suspicion  that  the  hotel  has 
some  hidden  vice,  so  that  the  waiters  and  cham- 
bermaids are  trying  to  pacify  you  in  advance. 
There  was  one  waiter  in  especial  who  was  the 
most  accomplished  social  being  I  have  ever  en- 
countered ;  from  morning  till  night  he  kept  up  an 
inarticulate  murmur  of  urbanity,  like  the  hum  of 
a  spinning-top.  I  may  add  that  I  discovered  no 
dark  secrets  at  the  Hotel  de  I'Univers;  for  it  is 
not  a  secret  to  any  traveler  to-day  that  the  obliga- 
tion to  partake  of  a  lukewarm  dinner  in  an  over- 
heated room  is  as  imperative  as  it  is  detestable. 
For  the  rest,  at  Tours,  there  is  a  certain  Rue 
Royale  which  has  pretensions  to  the  monumental ; 
it  was  constructed  a  hundred  years  ago,  and  the 
houses,  all  alike,  have  on  a  moderate  scale  a  pom- 
pous eighteenth-century  look.  It  connects  the 
Palais  de  Justice,  the  most  important  secular 
building  in  the  town,  with  the  long  bridge  which 
spans  the  Loire  —  the  spacious,  solid  bridge  pro- 
nounced by  Balzac,  in  "Le  Cure  de  Tours,"  "one 
of  the  finest  monuments  of  French  architecture." 
The  Palais  de  Justice  was  the  seat  of  the  Govern- 


8     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

ment  of  L6on  Gambetta  in  the  autumn  of  1870, 
after  the  dictator  had  been  obliged  to  retire  in  his 
balloon  from  Paris  and  before  the  Assembly  was 
constituted  at  Bordeaux.  The  Germans  occupied 
Tours  during  that  terrible  winter ;  it  is  astonish- 
ing, the  number  of  places  the  Germans  occupied. 
It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  wherever  one 
goes  in  certain  parts  of  France,  one  encounters 
two  great  historic  facts :  one  is  the  Revolution  ; 
the  other  is  the  German  invasion.  The  traces  of 
the  Revolution  remain  in  a  hundred  scars  and 
bruises  and  mutilations,  but  the  visible  marks  of 
the  war  of  1870  have  passed  away.  The  country 
is  so  rich,  so  living,  that  she  has  been  able  to 
dress  her  wounds,  to  hold  up  her  head,  to  smile 
again ;  so  that  the  shadow  of  that  darkness  has 
ceased  to  rest  upon  her.  But  what  you  do  not  see 
you  still  may  hear;  and  one  remembers  with  a 
certain  shudder  that  only  a  few  short  years  ago 
this  province,  so  intimately  French,  was  under  the 
heel  of  a  foreign  foe.  To  be  intimately  French 
was  apparently  not  a  safeguard ;  for  so  successful 
an  invader  it  could  only  be  a  challenge.  Peace 
and  plenty,  however,  have  succeeded  that  episode  ; 
and  among  the  gardens  and  vineyards  of  Touraine 
it  seems  only  a  legend  the  more  in  a  country  of 
legends. 

It  was  not,  all  the  same,  for  the  sake  of  this 


TOURS  9 

checkered  story  that  I  mentioned  the  Palais  de 
Justice  and  the  Rue  Royale.  The  most  interest- 
ing fact,  to  my  mind,  about  the  high-street  of 
Tours  was  that  as  you  walk  toward  the  bridge  on 
the  right  hand  trottoir  you  can  look  up  at  the 
house,  on  the  other  side  of  the  way,  in  which 
Honore  de  Balzac  first  saw  the  light.  That  vio- 
lent and  complicated  genius  was  a  child  of  the 
good-humored  and  succulent  Touraine.  There 
is  something  anomalous  in  this  fact,  though,  if 
one  thinks  about  it  a  little,  one  may  discover  cer- 
tain correspondences  between  his  character  and 
that  of  his  native  province.  Strenuous,  laborious, 
constantly  infelicitous  in  spite  of  his  great  suc- 
cesses, he  suggests  at  times  a  very  different  set  of 
influences.  But  he  had  his  jovial,  full-feeding 
side,  —  the  side  that  comes  out  in  the  "  Contes 
Drolatiques,"  which  are  the  romantic  and  epicu- 
rean chronicle  of  the  old  manors  and  abbeys  of 
this  region.  And  he  was  moreover  the  product 
of  a  soil  into  which  a  great  deal  of  history  had 
been  trodden.  Balzac  was  genuinely  as  well  as 
affectedly  monarchical,  and  he  was  saturated  with 
a  sense  of  the  past.  Number  39  Rue  Royale  — 
of  which  the  basement,  like  all  the  basements  in 
the  Rue  Royale,  is  occupied  by  a  shop  —  is  not 
shown  to  the  public  ;  and  I  know  not  whether 
tradition   designates   the   chamber  in  which  the 


lo    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

author  of  "  Le  Lys  dans  la  Valine  "  opened  his 
eyes  into  a  world  in  which  he  was  to  see  and 
to  imagine  such  extraordinary  things.  If  this 
were  the  case  I  would  willingly  have  crossed  its 
threshold  ;  not  for  the  sake  of  any  relic  of  the 
great  novelist  which  it  may  possibly  contain,  nor 
even  for  that  of  any  mystic  virtue  which  may  be 
supposed  to  reside  within  its  walls,  but  simply 
because  to  look  at  those  four  modest  walls  caf 
hardly  fail  to  give  one  a  strong  impression  of  the 
force  of  human  endeavor.  Balzac,  in  the  maturity 
of  his  vision,  took  in  more  of  human  life  than  any 
one,  since  Shakespeare,  who  has  attempted  to  tell 
us  stories  about  it ;  and  the  very  small  scene  on 
which  his  consciousness  dawned  is  one  end  of  the 
immense  scale  that  he  traversed.  I  confess  it 
shocked  me  a  little  to  find  that  he  was  born  in  a 
house  "in  a  row,"  —  a  house,  moreover,  which  at 
the  date  of  his  birth  must  have  been  only  about 
twenty  years  old.  All  that  is  contradictory.  If 
the  tenement  selected  for  this  honor  could  not 
be  ancient  and  embrowned,  it  should  at  least  have 
been  detached. 

There  is  a  charming  description  in  his  little  tale 
of  "  La  Grenadi^re  "  of  the  view  of  the  opposite 
side  of  the  Loire  as  you  have  it  from  the  square 
at  the  end  of  the  Rue  Royale,  —  a  square  that 
has  some  pretensions  to  grandeur,  overlooked  as 


lili.i 


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THE   HOUSE  OF   BALZAC,   TOURS 


TOURS  II 

it  is  by  the  Hotel  de  Ville  and  the  Miisee,  a  pair 
of  edifices  which  directly  contemplate  the  river, 
and  ornamented  with  marble  images  of  Francois 
Rabelais  and  Rene  Descartes.  The  former, 
erected  a  few  years  since,  is  a  very  honorable 
production  ;  the  pedestal  of  the  latter  could,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  only  be  inscribed  with  the  Cogito 
ergo  Stim.  The  two  statues  mark  the  two  oppo- 
site poles  to  which  the  wondrous  French  mind 
has  traveled ;  and  if  there  were  an  effigy  of  Balzac 
at  Tours  it  ought  to  stand  midwav  between  them. 
Not  that  he  by  any  means  always  struck  the 
happy  mean  between  the  sensible  and  the  meta- 
physical ;  but  one  may  say  of  him  that  half  of  his 
genius  looks  in  one  direction  and  half  in  the 
other.  The  side  that  turns  toward  Francois 
Rabelais  would  be,  on  the  whole,  the  side  that 
takes  the  sun.  But  there  is  no  statue  of  Balzac 
at  Tours  ;  there  is  only  in  one  of  the  chambers 
of  the  melancholy  museum  a  rather  clever,  coarse 
bust.  The  description  in  "  La  Grenadiere "  of 
which  I  just  spoke  is  too  long  to  quote  ;  neither 
have  I  space  for  any  one  of  the  brilliant  attempts 
at  landscape-painting  which  are  woven  into  the 
shimmering  texture  of  "  Le  Lys  dans  la  Vallee." 
The  little  manor  of  Clochegourde,  the  residence 
of  Madame  de  Mortsauf,  the  heroine  of  that  ex- 
traordinary work,  was  within  a  moderate  walk  of 


12     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

Tours,  and  the  picture  in  the  novel  is  presumably 
a  copy  from  an  original  which  it  would  be  possible 
to-day  to  discover.  I  did  not,  however,  even 
make  the  attempt.  There  are  so  many  chateaux 
in  Touraine  commemorated  in  history  that  it 
would  take  one  too  far  to  look  up  those  which 
have  been  commemorated  in  fiction.  The  most  I 
did  was  to  endeavor  to  identify  the  former  resi- 
dence of  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  the  sinister  old 
maid  of  "  Le  Cure  de  Tours."  This  terrible 
woman  occupied  a  small  house  in  the  rear  of  the 
cathedral,  where  I  spent  a  whole  morning  in  won- 
dering rather  stupidly  which  house  it  could  be. 
To  reach  the  cathedral  from  the  little /f/ace  where 
we  stopped  just  now  to  look  across  at  the  Grena- 
diere,  without,  it  must  be  confessed,  very  vividly 
seeing  it,  you  follow  the  quay  to  the  right  and 
pass  out  of  sight  of  the  charming  coteau  which, 
from  beyond  the  river,  faces  the  town  —  a  soft 
agglomeration  of  gardens,  vineyards,  scattered 
villas,  gables  and  turrets  of  slate-roofed  chateaux, 
terraces  with  gray  balustrades,  moss-grown  walls 
draped  in  scarlet  Virginia-creeper.  You  turn  into 
the  town  again  beside  a  great  military  barrack 
which  is  ornamented  with  a  rugged  mediaeval 
tower,  a  relic  of  the  ancient  fortifications,  known 
to  the  Tourangeaux  of  to-day  as  the  Tour  de 
Guise.   The  young  Prince  of  Joinville,  son  of  that 


TOURS  13 

Duke  of  Guise  who  was  murdered  by  the  order  of 
Henry  11.  at  Blois,  was,  after  the  death  of  his 
father  confined  here  for  more  than  two  years, 
but  made  his  escape  one  summer  evening  in  1591, 
under  the  nose  of  his  keepers,  with  a  gallant  au- 
dacity which  has  attached  the  memory  of  the 
exploit  to  his  sullen-looking  prison.  Tours  has  a 
garrison  of  five  regiments,  and  the  little  red- 
legged  soldiers  light  up  the  town.  You  see  them 
stroll  upon  the  clean,  uncommercial  quay,  where 
there  are  no  signs  of  navigation,  not  even  by  oar, 
no  barrels  nor  bales,  no  loading  nor  unloading,  no 
masts  against  the  sky  nor  booming  of  steam  in 
the  air.  The  most  active  business  that  goes  on 
there  is  that  patient  and  fruitless  angling  in  which 
the  French,  as  the  votaries  of  art  for  art,  excel 
all  other  people.  The  little  soldiers,  weighed 
down  by  the  contents  of  their  enormous  pockets, 
pass  with  respect  from  one  of  these  masters  of 
the  rod  to  the  other,  as  he  sits  soaking  an  indefi- 
nite bait  in  the  large  indifferent  stream.  After 
you  turn  your  back  to  the  quay  you  have  only  to 
go  a  little  way  before  you  reach  the  cathedral. 


II 

TOURS:    THE    CATHEDRAL 

IT  is  a  very  beautiful  church  of  the  second 
order  of  importance,  with  a  charming  mouse- 
colored  complexion  and  a  pair  of  fantastic  towers. 
There  is  a  commodious  little  square  in  front  of  it, 
from  which  you  may  look  up  at  its  very  orna- 
mental face  ;  but  for  purposes  of  frank  admiration 
the  sides  and  the  rear  are  perhaps  not  sufficiently 
detached.  The  cathedral  of  Tours,  which  is  dedi- 
cated to  Saint  Gatianus,  took  a  long  time  to  build. 
Begun  in  1170,  it  was  finished  only  in  the  first 
half  of  the  sixteenth  century  ;  but  the  ages  and 
the  weather  have  interfused  so  well  the  tone  of 
the  different  parts  that  it  presents,  at  first  at  least, 
no  striking  incongruities,  and  looks  even  excep- 
tionally harmonious  and  complete.  There  are 
many  grander  cathedrals,  but  there  are  probably 
few  more  pleasing ;  and  this  effect  of  delicacy  and 
grace  is  at  its  best  towards  the  close  of  a  quiet 
afternoon,  when  the  densely  decorated  towers, 
rising  above  the  little  Place  de  TArcheveche,  lift 
their  curious  lanterns  into  the  slanting  light  and 


TOURS:    THE   CATHEDRAL     15 

offer  a  multitudinous  perch  to  troops  of  circling 
pigeons.  The  whole  front,  at  such  a  time,  has  an 
appearance  of  great  richness,  although  the  niches 
which  surround  the  three  high  doors  (with  recesses 
deep  enough  for  several  circles  of  sculpture)  and 
indent  the  four  great  buttresses  that  ascend  beside 
the  huge  rose-window,  carry  no  figures  beneath 
their  little  chiseled  canopies.  The  blast  of  the 
great  Revolution  blew  down  most  of  the  statues 
in  France,  and  the  wind  has  never  set  very 
strongly  towards  putting  them  up  again.  The 
embossed  and  crocketed  cupolas  which  crown  the 
towers  of  Saint  Gatien  are  not  very  pure  in  taste  ; 
but,  like  a  good  many  impurities,  they  have  a  cer- 
tain character.  The  interior  has  a  stately  slim- 
ness  with  which  no  fault  is  to  be  found  and  which 
in  the  choir,  rich  in  early  glass  and  surrounded  by 
a  broad  passage,  becomes  very  bold  and  noble. 
Its  principal  treasure  perhaps  is  the  charming 
little  tomb  of  the  two  children  (who  died  young) 
of  Charles  VHI.  and  Anne  of  Brittany,  in  white 
marble  embossed  with  symbolic  dolphins  and 
exquisite  arabesques.  The  little  boy  and  girl  lie 
side  by  side  on  a  slab  of  black  marble,  and  a  pair 
of  small  kneeling  angels,  both  at  their  head  and 
at  their  feet,  watch  over  them.  Nothing  could  be 
more  elegant  than  this  monument,  which  is  the 
work  of  Michel  Colomb,  one  of  the  earlier  glories 


i6     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

of  the  French  Renaissance  ;  it  is  really  a  lesson  in 
good  taste.  Originally  placed  in  the  great  abbey- 
church  of  Saint  Martin,  which  was  for  so  many 
ages  the  holy  place  of  Tours,  it  happily  survived 
the  devastation  .to  which  that  edifice,  already  sadly 
shattered  by  the  wars  of  religion  and  successive 
profanations,  finally  succumbed  in  1797.  In  181 5 
the  tomb  found  an  asylum  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the 
cathedral. 

I  ought  perhaps  to  be  ashamed  to  acknowledge 
that  I  found  the  profane  name  of  Balzac  capable 
of  adding  an  interest  even  to  this  venerable  sanc- 
tuary. Those  who  have  read  the  terrible  little 
story  of  "  Le  Cure  de  Tours "  will  perhaps  re- 
member that,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  the 
simple  and  childlike  old  Abbe  Birotteau,  victim 
of  the  infernal  machinations  of  the  Abbe  Troubert 
and  Mademoiselle  Gamard,  had  his  quarters  in 
the  house  of  that  lady  (she  had  a  specialty  of  let- 
ting lodgings  to  priests),  which  stood  on  the  north 
side  of  the  cathedral,  so  close  under  its  walls  that 
the  supporting  pillar  of  one  of  the  great  flying 
buttresses  was  planted  in  the  spinster's  garden. 
If  you  wander  round  behind  the  church  in  search 
of  this  more  than  historic  habitation  you  will  have 
occasion  to  see  that  the  side  and  rear  of  Saint 
Gatien  make  a  delectable  and  curious  figure.  A 
narrow  lane  passes  beside  the  high   wall  which 


TOURS,   THE   CATHEDRAL 


TOURS:    THE   CATHEDRAL     17 

conceals  from  sight  the  palace  of  the  archbishop 
and  beneath  the  flying  buttresses,  the  far-project- 
ing gargoyles,  and  the  fine  south  porch  of  the 
church.  It  terminates  in  a  little  dead  grass-grown 
square  entitled  the  Place  Gregoire  de  Tours.  All 
this  part  of  the  exterior  of  the  cathedral  is  very 
brown,  ancient,  Gothic,  grotesque ;  Balzac  calls 
the  whole  place  "a  desert  of  stone."  A  battered 
and  gabled  wing  or  out-house  (as  it  appears  to  be) 
of  the  hidden  palace,  with  a  queer  old  stone  pulpit 
jutting  out  from  it,  looks  down  on  this  melancholy 
spot,  on  the  other  side  of  which  is  a  seminary  for 
young  priests,  one  of  whom  issues  from  a  door  in 
a  quiet  corner,  and,  holding  it  open  a  moment  be- 
hind him,  shows  a  glimpse  of  a  sunny  garden, 
where  you  may  fancy  other  black  young  figures 
strolling  up  and  down.  Mademoiselle  Gamard's 
house,  where  she  took  her  two  abbes  to  board, 
and  basely  conspired  with  one  against  the  other, 
is  still  further  round  the  cathedral.  You  cannot 
quite  put  your  hand  upon  it  to-day,  for  the  dwell- 
ing of  which  you  say  to  yourself  that  it  must  have 
been  Mademoiselle  Gamard's  does  not  fulfill  all 
the  conditions  mentioned  in  Balzac's  description. 
The  edifice  in  question,  however,  fulfills  conditions 
enough ;  in  particular,  its  little  court  offers  hospi- 
tality to  the  big  buttress  of  the  church.  Another 
buttress,   corresponding  with   this   (the   two,  be- 


i8     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

tween  them,  sustain  the  gable  of  the  north  tran- 
sept), is  planted  in  the  small  cloister,  of  which  the 
door  on  the  further  side  of  the  little  soundless 
Rue  de  la  Psalette,  where  nothing  seems  ever  to 
pass,  opens  opposite  to  that  of  Mademoiselle  Ga- 
mard.  There  is  a  very  genial  old  sacristan,  who 
introduced  me  to  this  cloister  from  the  church. 
It  is  very  small  and  solitary,  and  much  mutilated ; 
but  it  nestles  with  a  kind  of  wasted  friendliness 
beneath  the  big  walls  of  the  cathedral.  Its  lower 
arcades  have  been  closed,  and  it  has  a  small  plot 
of  garden  in  the  middle,  with  fruit-trees  which  I 
should  imagine  to  be  too  much  overshadowed.  In 
one  corner  is  a  remarkably  picturesque  turret,  the 
cage  of  a  winding  staircase  which  ascends  (no 
great  distance)  to  an  upper  gallery,  where  an  old 
priest,  the  chanoine-gardien  of  the  church,  was 
walking  to  and  fro  with  his  breviary.  The  turret, 
the  gallery,  and  even  the  chanoine-gardien,  be- 
longed, that  sweet  September  morning,  to  the 
class  of  objects  that  are  dear  to  painters  in  water- 
colors. 


Ill 

TOURS:     SAINT    MARTIN 

I  HAVE  mentioned  the  church  of  Saint  Mar- 
tin, which  was  for  many  years  the  sacred  spot, 
the  shrine  of  pilgrimage,  of  Tours.  Originally 
the  simple  burial-place  of  the  great  apostle  who  in 
the  fourth  century  Christianized  Gaul  and  who,  in 
his  day  a  brilliant  missionary  and  worker  of  mir- 
acles, is  chiefly  known  to  modern  fame  as  the 
worthy  that  cut  his  cloak  in  two  at  the  gate  of 
Amiens  to  share  it  with  a  beggar  (tradition  fails 
to  say,  I  believe,  what  he  did  with  the  other  half), 
the  abbey  of  Saint  Martin,  through  the  Middle 
Ages,  waxed  rich  and  powerful,  till  it  was  known 
at  last  as  one  of  the  most  luxurious  religious 
houses  in  Christendom,  with  kings  for  its  titular 
abbots  (who,  like  Francis  L,  sometimes  turned 
and  despoiled  it)  and  a  great  treasure  of  precious 
things.  It  passed,  however,  through  many  vicis- 
situdes. Pillaged  by  the  Normans  in  the  ninth 
century  and  by  the  Huguenots  in  the  sixteenth, 
it  received  its  death-blow  from  the  Revolution, 
which    must    have  brought   to   bear  upon  it  an 


20     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

energy  of  destruction  proportionate  to  its  mighty 
bulk.  At  the  end  of  the  last  century  a  huge 
group  of  ruins  alone  remained,  and  what  we  see 
to-day  may  be  called  the  ruin  of  a  ruin.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  understand  how  so  vast  an  edifice  can 
have  been  so  completely  obliterated.  Its  site  is 
given  up  to  several  ugly  streets,  and  a  pair  of  tall 
towers,  separated  by  a  space  which  speaks  vol- 
umes as  to  the  size  of  the  church  and  looking 
across  the  close-pressed  roofs  to  the  happier  spires 
of  the  cathedral,  preserve  for  the  modern  world 
the  memory  of  a  great  fortune,  a  great  abuse,  per- 
haps, and  at  all  events  a  great  penalty.  One  may 
believe  that  to  this  day  a  considerable  part  of  the 
foundations  of  the  great  abbey  is  buried  in  the 
soil  of  Tours.  The  two  surviving  towers,  which 
are  dissimilar  in  shape,  are  enormous ;  with  those 
of  the  cathedral  they  form  the  great  landmarks  of 
the  town.  One  of  them  bears  the  name  of  the 
Tour  de  I'Horloge  ;  the  other,  the  so-called  Tour 
Charlemagne,  was  erected  (two  centuries  after  her 
death)  over  the  tomb  of  Luitgarde,  wife  of  the 
great  Emperor,  who  died  at  Tours  in  800.  I  do 
not  pretend  to  understand  in  what  relation  these 
very  mighty  and  effectually  detached  masses  of 
masonry  stood  to  each  other,  but  in  their  gray 
elevation  and  loneliness  they  are  striking  and 
suggestive  to-day ;  holding  their  hoary  heads  far 


TOURS,   THE   TOWERS   OF   SAINT  MARTIN 


•  •  • 

•  •    • 

•  •  •  " 


TOURS:    SAINT   MARTIN        21 

above  the  modern  life  of  the  town  and  looking 
sad  and  conscious,  as  they  had  outlived  all  uses. 
I  know  not  what  is  supposed  to  have  become  of 
the  bones  of  the  blessed  saint  during  the  various 
scenes  of  confusion  in  which  they  may  have  got 
mislaid  ;  but  a  mystic  connection  with  his  wonder- 
working relics  may  be  perceived  in  a  strange  little 
sanctuary  on  the  left  of  the  street,  which  opens  in 
front  of  the  Tour  Charlemagne  —  whose  imme- 
morial base,  by  the  way,  inhabited  like  a  cavern, 
with  a  diminutive  doorway  where,  as  I  passed,  an 
old  woman  stood  cleaning  a  pot,  and  a  little  dark 
window  decorated  with  homely  flowers,  would  be 
appreciated  by  a  painter  in  search  of  "bits."  The 
present  shrine  of  Saint  Martin  is  inclosed  (pro- 
visionally, I  suppose)  in  a  very  modern  structure 
of  timber,  where  in  a  dusky  cellar,  to  which  you 
descend  by  a  wooden  staircase  adorned  with  votive 
tablets  and  paper  roses,  is  placed  a  tabernacle 
surrounded  by  twinkling  tapers  and  prostrate  wor- 
shipers. Even  this  crepuscular  vault,  however, 
fails,  I  think,  to  attain  solemnity ;  for  the  whole 
place  is  strangely  vulgar  and  garish.  The  Catholic 
Church,  as  churches  go  to-day,  is  certainly  the 
most  spectacular ;  but  it  must  feel  that  it  has  a 
great  fund  of  impressiveness  to  draw  upon  when 
it  opens  such  sordid  little  shops  of  sanctity  as 
this.     It  is  impossible  not  to  be  struck  with  the 


22     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

grotesqueness  of  such  an  establishment  as  the 
last  link  in  the  chain  of  a  great  ecclesiastical 
tradition. 

In  the  same  street,  on  the  other  side,  a  little 
below,  is  something  better  worth  your  visit  than 
the  shrine  of  Saint  Martin.  Knock  at  a  high  door 
in  a  white  wall  (there  is  a  cross  above  it),  and  a 
fresh-faced  sister  of  the  convent  of  the  Petit  Saint 
Martin  will  let  you  into  the  charming  little  cloister 
or  rather  fragment  of  cloister.  Only  one  side  of 
this  surpassing  structure  remains,  but  the  whole 
place  is  effective.  In  front  of  the  beautiful  arcade, 
which  is  terribly  bruised  and  obliterated,  is  one  of 
those  walks  of  interlaced  tilleids  which  are  so  fre- 
quent in  Touraine  and  into  which  the  green  light 
filters  so  softly  through  a  lattice  of  clipped  twigs. 
Beyond  this  is  a  garden,  and  beyond  the  garden 
are  the  other  buildings  of  the  convent,  where  the 
placid  sisters  keep  a  school,  —  a  test,  doubtless,  of 
placidity.  The  imperfect  arcade,  which  dates  from 
the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth  century  (I  know 
nothing  of  it  but  what  is  related  in  Mrs.  Pattison's 
"Renaissance  in  France"),  is  a  truly  enchanting 
piece  of  work  ;  the  cornice  and  the  angles  of  the 
arches  being  covered  with  the  daintiest  sculpture 
of  arabesques,  flowers,  fruit,  medallions,  cherubs, 
griffins,  all  in  the  finest  and  most  attenuated  re- 
lief.    It  is  like  the  chasing  of  a  bracelet  in  stone. 


TOURS:    SAINT   MARTIN        23 

The  taste,  the  fancy,  the  elegance,  the  refinement, 
are  of  the  order  that  straightens  up  again  our  droop- 
ing standard  of  distinction.  Such  a  piece  of  work 
is  the  purest  flower  of  the  French  Renaissance ; 
there  is  nothing  more  delicate  in  all  Touraine. 

There  is  another  fine  thing  at  Tours  which  is 
not  particularly  delicate,  but  which  makes  a  great 
impression  —  the  very  interesting  old  church  of 
Saint  Julian,  lurking  in  a  crooked  corner  at  the 
right  of  the  Rue  Royale,  near  the  point  at  which 
this  indifferent  thoroughfare  emerges,  with  its 
little  cry  of  admiration,  on  the  bank  of  the  Loire. 
Saint  Julian  stands  to-day  in  a  kind  of  neglected 
hollow,  where  it  is  much  shut  in  by  houses ;  but 
in  the  year  1225,  when  the  edifice  was  begun,  the 
site  was  doubtless,  as  the  architects  say,  more 
eligible.  At  present  indeed,  when  once  you  have 
caught  a  glimpse  of  the  stout,  serious  Romanesque 
tower  —  which  is  not  high,  but  strong  —  you  feel 
that  the  building  has  something  to  say  and  that 
you  must  stop  to  listen  to  it.  Within,  it  has  a 
vast  and  splendid  nave,  of  immense  height,  the 
nave  of  a  cathedral,  with  a  shallow  choir  and  tran- 
septs and  some  admirable  old  glass.  I  spent  half 
an  hour  there  one  morning,  listening  to  what  the 
church  had  to  say,  in  perfect  solitude.  Not  a 
worshiper  entered,  not  even  an  old  man  with  a 
broom.     I  have  always  thought  there  is  a  sex  in 


24     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

fine  buildings ;   and   Saint  Julian,  with  its  noble 
nave,  is  of  the  gender  of  the  name  of  its  patron. 

It  was  that  same  morning,  I  think,  that  I  went 
in  search  of  the  old  houses  of  Tours ;  for  the 
town  contains  several  goodly  specimens  of  the 
domestic  architecture  of  the  past.  The  dwelling 
to  which  the  average  Anglo-Saxon  will  most 
promptly  direct  his  steps,  and  the  only  one  I  have 
space  to  mention,  is  the  so-called  Maison  de  Tris- 
tan I'Hermite  —  a  gentleman  whom  the  readers  of 
''  Quentin  Durward  "  will  not  have  forgotten  — 
the  hangman-in-ordinary  to  that  great  and  prompt 
chastener,  Louis  XL  Unfortunately  the  house 
of  Tristan  is  not  the  house  of  Tristan  at  all ;  this 
illusion  has  been  cruelly  dispelled.  There  are  no 
illusions  left,  at  all,  in  the  good  city  of  Tours, 
with  regard  to  Louis  XL  His  terrible  castle  of 
Plessis,  the  picture  of  which  sends  a  shiver 
through  the  youthful  reader  of  Scott,  has  been 
reduced  to  suburban  insignificance ;  and  the  resi- 
dence of  his  triste  compbre^  on  the  front  of  which 
a  festooned  rope  figures  as  a  motive  for  decora- 
tion, is  observed  to  have  been  erected  in  the  suc- 
ceeding century.  The  Maison  de  Tristan  may  be 
visited  for  itself,  however,  if  not  for  Sir  Walter ; 
it  is  an  exceedingly  picturesque  old  facade,  to 
which  you  pick  your  way  through  a  narrow  and 
tortuous   street  —  a   street   terminating,   a  little 


TOURS:    SAINT   MARTIN        25 

beyond  it,  in  the  walk  beside  the  river.  An  ele- 
gant Gothic  doorway  is  let  into  the  rusty-red 
brick-work,  and  strange  little  beasts  crouch  at  the 
angles  of  the  windows,  which  are  surmounted  by 
a  tall  graduated  gable,  pierced  with  a  small  orifice, 
where  the  large  surface  of  brick,  lifted  out  of  the 
shadow  of  the  street,  looks  yellow  and  faded.  The 
whole  thing  is  disfigured  and  decayed ;  but  it  is 
a  capital  subject  for  a  sketch  in  colors.  Only  I 
must  wish  the  sketcher  better  luck  —  or  a  better 
temper  —  than  my  own.  If  he  ring  the  bell  to  be 
admitted  to  see  the  court,  which  I  believe  is  more 
sketchable  still,  let  him  have  patience  to  wait 
till  the  bell  is  answered.  He  can  do  the  outside 
while  they  are  coming. 

The  Maison  de  Tristan,  I  say,  may  be  visited 
for  itself ;  but  I  hardly  know  for  what  the  rem- 
nants of  Plessis-les-Tours  may  be  investigated.  To 
reach  them  you  wander  through  crooked  suburban 
lanes,  down  the  course  of  the  Loire,  to  a  rough, 
undesirable,  incongruous  spot,  where  a  small, 
crude  building  of  red  brick  is  pointed  out  to  you 
by  your  cabman  (if  you  happen  to  drive)  as  the 
legendary  frame  of  the  grim  portrait,  and  where  a 
strong  odor  of  pigsties  and  other  unclean  things 
so  prostrates  you  for  the  moment  that  you  have 
no  energy  to  protest  against  this  obvious  fiction. 
You  enter  a  yard  encumbered  with  rubbish  and  a 


26     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

defiant  dog,  and  an  old  woman  emerges  from  a 
shabby  lodge  and  assures  you  that  you  stand  deep 
in  historic  dust.  The  red  brick  building,  which 
looks  like  a  small  factory,  rises  on  the  ruins  of 
the  favorite  residence  of  the  dreadful  Louis.  It 
is  now  occupied  by  a  company  of  night  scav- 
engers, whose  huge  carts  are  drawn  up  in  a  row 
before  it.  I  know  not  whether  this  be  what  is 
called  the  irony  of  fate ;  in  any  case  the  effect  of 
it  is  to  accentuate  strongly  the  fact  (and  through 
the  most  susceptible  of  our  senses)  that  there  is 
no  honor  for  the  authors  of  great  wrongs.  The 
dreadful  Louis  is  reduced  simply  to  an  offense  to 
the  nostrils.  The  old  woman  shows  you  a  few 
fragments  —  several  dark,  damp,  much-encum- 
bered vaults,  denominated  dungeons,  and  an  old 
tower  staircase  in  good  condition.  There  are  the 
outlines  of  the  old  moat ;  there  is  also  the  outline 
of  the  old  guard-room,  which  is  now  a  stable  ;  and 
there  are  other  silhouettes  of  the  undistinguish- 
able,  which  I  have  forgotten.  You  need  all  your 
imagination,  and  even  then  you  cannot  make  out 
that  Plessis  was  a  castle  of  large  extent,  though 
the  old  woman,  as  your  eye  wanders  over  the 
neighboring  potagcrs,  discourses  much  of  the 
gardens  and  the  park.  The  place  looks  mean 
and  flat ;  and  as  you  drive  away  you  scarcely 
know  whether  to  be  glad  or  sorry  that  all  those 


TOURS:    SAINT   MARTIN        27 

bristling  horrors  have  been  reduced  to  the  com- 
monplace. 

A  certain  flatness  of  impression  awaits  you  also, 
I  think,  at  Marmoutier,  which  is  the  other  indis- 
pensable excursion  in  the  near  neighborhood  of 
Tours.  The  remains  of  this  famous  abbey  lie  on 
the  other  bank  of  the  stream,  about  a  mile  and  a 
half  from  the  town.  You  follow  the  edge  of  the 
big  brown  river ;  of  a  fine  afternoon  you  will  be 
glad  to  go  further  still.  The  abbey  has  gone  the 
way  of  most  abbeys  ;  but  the  place  is  a  restora- 
tion as  well  as  a  ruin,  inasmuch  as  the  sisters  of 
the  Sacred  Heart  have  erected  a  terribly  modern 
convent  here.  A  large  Gothic  doorway,  in  a  high 
fragment  of  ancient  wall,  admits  you  to  a  garden- 
like inclosure  of  great  extent,  from  which  you  are 
further  introduced  into  an  extraordinarily  tidy 
little  parlor,  where  two  good  nuns  sit  at  work. 
One  of  these  came  out  with  me  and  showed  me 
over  the  place — a  very  definite  little  woman,  with 
pointed  features,  an  intensely  distinct  enunciation, 
and  those  pretty  manners  which  (for  whatever 
other  teachings  it  may  be  responsible)  the  Cath- 
olic Church  so  often  instills  into  its  functionaries. 
I  have  never  seen  a  woman  who  had  got  her  lesson 
better  than  this  little  trotting,  murmuring,  edify- 
ing nun.  The  interest  of  Marmoutier  to-day  is 
not  so  much  an  interest  of  vision,  so  to  speak,  as 


28     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

an  interest  of  reflection  —  that  is,  if  you  choose  to 
reflect  (for  instance)  upon  the  wondrous  legend 
of  the  seven  sleepers  (you  may  see  where  they  lie 
in  a  row)  who  lived  together  —  they  were  brothers 
and  cousins  —  in  primitive  piety,  in  the  sanctuary 
constructed  by  the  blessed  Saint  Martin  (emulous 
of  his  precursor.  Saint  Gatianus),  in  the  face  of 
the  hillside  that  overhung  the  Loire,  and  who, 
twenty-five  years  after  his  death,  yielded  up  their 
seven  souls  at  the  same  moment  and  enjoyed  the 
rare  convenience  of  retaining  in  their  faces,  in 
spite  of  mortality,  every  aspect  of  health.  The 
abbey  of  Marmoutier,  which  sprung  from  the 
grottoes  in  the  cliff  to  which  Saint  Gatianus  and 
Saint  Martin  retired  to  pray,  was  therefore  the 
creation  of  the  latter  worthy,  as  the  other  great 
abbey,  in  the  town  proper,  was  the  monument  of 
his  repose.  The  cliff  is  still  there  ;  and  a  wind- 
ing staircase,  in  the  latest  taste,  enables  you  con- 
veniently to  explore  its  recesses.  These  sacred 
niches  are  scooped  out  of  the  rock,  and  will  give 
you  an  impression  if  you  cannot  do  without  one. 
You  will  feel  them  to  be  sufficiently  venerable 
when  you  learn  that  the  particular  pigeon-hole  of 
Saint  Gatianus,  the  first  Christian  missionary  to 
Gaul,  dates  from  the  third  century.  They  have 
been  dealt  with  as  the  Catholic  Church  deals  with 
most   of   such   places   to-day;  polished   and   fur- 


TOURS:    SAINT    MARTIN        29 

bished  up,  labeled  and  ticketed  —  edited,  with 
notes,  in  short,  like  an  old  book.  The  process  is 
a  mistake  —  the  early  editions  had  more  sanctity. 
The  modern  buildings  (of  the  Sacred  Heart),  on 
which  you  look  down  from  these  points  of  van- 
tage, are  in  the  vulgar  taste  which  sets  its  so 
mechanical  stamp  on  all  new  Catholic  work ;  but 
there  was  nevertheless  a  great  sweetness  in  the 
scene.  The  afternoon  was  lovely,  and  it  was 
flushing  to  a  close.  The  large  garden  stretched 
beneath  us,  blooming  with  fruit  and  wine  and  suc- 
culent promise,  and  beyond  it  flowed  the  shining 
river.  The  air  was  still,  the  shadows  were  long, 
and  the  place,  after  all,  was  full  of  memories,  most 
of  which  might  pass  for  virtuous.  It  certainly 
was  better  than  Plessis-les-Tours. 


YOUR  business  at  Tours  is  to  make  excur- 
sions ;  and  if  you  make  them  all  you  will  be 
always  under  arms.  The  land  is  a  rich  reliquary, 
and  an  hour's  drive  from  the  town  in  almost  any 
direction  will  bring  you  to  the  knowledge  of  some 
curious  fragment  of  domestic  or  ecclesiastical 
architecture,  some  turreted  manor,  some  lonely 
tower,  some  gabled  village,  some  scene  of  some- 
thing. Yet  even  if  you  do  everything  —  which  was 
not  my  case — you  cannot  hope  to  tell  everything, 
and,  fortunately  for  you,  the  excursions  divide 
themselves  into  the  greater  and  the  less.     You 


BLOIS  31 

may  achieve  most  of  the  greater  in  a  week  or 
two ;  but  a  summer  in  Touraine  (which,  by  the 
way,  must  be  a  delectable  thing)  would  hold  none 
too  many  days  for  the  others.  If  you  come 
down  to  Tours  from  Paris  your  best  economy  is 
to  spend  a  few  days  at  Blois,  where  a  clumsy  but 
rather  attractive  little  inn  on  the  edge  of  the  river 
will  offer  you  a  certain  amount  of  that  familiar 
and  intermittent  hospitality  which  a  few  weeks 
spent  in  the  French  provinces  teaches  you  to  re- 
gard as  the  highest  attainable  form  of  accommo- 
dation. Such  an  economy  I  was  unable  to  prac- 
tice. I  could  only  go  to  Blois  (from  Tours)  to 
spend  the  day  ;  but  this  feat  I  accomplished  twice 
over.  It  is  a  very  sympathetic  little  town,  as  we 
say  nowadays,  and  a  week  there  would  be  sociable 
even  without  company.  Seated  on  the  north  bank 
of  the  Loire,  it  presents  a  bright,  clean  face  to  the 
sun  and  has  that  aspect  of  cheerful  leisure  which 
belongs  to  all  white  towns  that  reflect  themselves 
in  shining  waters.  It  is  the  water-front  only  of 
Blois,  however,  that  exhibits  this  fresh  complex- 
ion ;  the  interior  is  of  a  proper  brownness,  as  old 
sallow  books  are  bound  in  vellum.  The  only  dis- 
appointment is  perforce  the  discovery  that  the 
castle,  which  is  the  special  object  of  one's  pil- 
grimage, does  not  overhang  the  river,  as  I  had 
always    allowed    myself  to  understand.     It  over- 


32     A   LITTLE  TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

hangs  the  town,  but  is  scarcely  visible  from  the 
stream.  That  peculiar  good  fortune  is  reserved 
for  Amboise  and  Chaumont. 

The  Chateau  de  Blois  is  one  of  the  most  beau- 
tiful and  elaborate  of  all  the  old  royal  residences 
of  this  part  of  France,  and  I  suppose  it  should 
have  all  the  honors  of  my  description.  As  you 
cross  its  threshold  you  step  straight  into  the  sun- 
shine and  storm  of  the  French  Renaissance.  But 
it  is  too  rich  to  describe  —  I  can  only  pick  out 
the  high  lights.  It  must  be  premised  that  in 
speaking  of  it  as  we  see  it  to-day  we  speak  of  a 
monument  unsparingly  restored.  The  work  of 
restoration  has  been  as  ingenious  as  it  is  profuse, 
but  it  rather  chills  the  imagination.  This  is  per- 
haps almost  the  first  thing  you  feel  as  you  ap- 
proach the  castle  from  the  streets  of  the  town. 
These  little  streets,  as  they  leave  the  river,  have 
pretensions  to  romantic  steepness ;  one  of  them, 
indeed,  which  resolves  itself  into  a  high  staircase 
with  divergent  wings  (the  escalier  momimental)^ 
achieved  this  result  so  successfully  as  to  remind 
me  vaguely  —  I  hardly  know  why  —  of  the  great 
slope  of  the  Capitol,  beside  the  Ara  Coeli,  at 
Rome.  The  view  of  that  part  of  the  castle  which 
figures  to-day  as  the  back  (it  is  the  only  aspect  I 
had  seen  reproduced)  exhibits  the  marks  of  re- 
storation with  the  greatest  assurance.     The  long 


BLOIS,    FROM   THE   LOIRE 


BLOIS  33 

facade,  consisting  only  of  balconied  windows  deeply 
recessed,  erects  itself  on  the  summit  of  a  con- 
siderable hill,  which  gives  a  fine,  plunging  move- 
ment to  its  foundations.  The  deep  niches  of  the 
windows  are  all  aglow  with  color.  They  have 
been  repainted  with  red  and  blue,  relieved  with 
gold  figures ;  and  each  of  them  looks  more  like 
the  royal  box  at  a  theatre  than  like  the  aperture 
of  a  palace  dark  with  memories.  For  all  this, 
however,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that,  as  in  some 
others  of  the  chateaux  of  Touraine  (always  except- 
ing the  colossal  Chambord,  which  is  not  in  Tou- 
raine), there  is  less  vastness  than  one  had  expected, 
the  least  hospitable  aspect  of  Blois  is  abundantly 
impressive.  Here,  as  elsewhere,  lightness  and 
grace  are  the  keynote ;  and  the  recesses  of  the 
windows,  with  their  happy  proportions,  their  sculp- 
ture and  their  color,  are  the  hollow  sockets  of  the 
human  ornament.  They  need  the  figure  of  a 
Francis  I.  to  complete  them,  or  of  a  Diane  de  Poi- 
tiers, or  even  of  a  Henry  HI.  The  stand  of  this 
empty  gilt  cage  emerges  from  a  bed  of  light  ver- 
dure which  has  been  allowed  to  mass  itself  there 
and  which  contributes  to  the  springing  look  of  the 
walls ;  while  on  the  right  it  joins  the  most  modern 
portion  of  the  castle,  the  building  erected,  on 
foundations  of  enormous  height  and  solidity,  in 
1635,  by  Gaston  d'Orleans.     This  fine  frigid  man- 


34     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

sion  —  the  proper  view  of  it  is  from  the  court 
within  —  is  one  of  the  masterpieces  of  Frangois 
Mansard,  whom  a  kind  providence  did  not  allow 
to  make  over  the  whole  palace  in  the  superior 
manner  of  his  superior  age.  That  had  been  a 
part  of  Gaston's  plan  —  he  was  a  blunderer  born, 
and  this  precious  project  was  worthy  of  him.  This 
execution  of  it  would  surely  have  been  one  of  the 
great  misdeeds  of  history.  Partially  performed, 
the  misdeed  is  not  altogether  to  be  regretted ;  for 
as  one  stands  in  the  court  of  the  castle  and  lets 
one's  eyes  wander  from  the  splendid  wing  of 
Francis  I.  —  which  is  the  last  word  of  free  and 
joyous  invention — to  the  ruled  lines  and  blank 
spaces  of  the  ponderous  pavilion  of  Mansard,  one 
makes  one's  reflections  upon  the  advantage,  in 
even  the  least  personal  of  the  arts,  of  having 
something  to  say,  and  upon  the  stupidity  of  a  taste 
which  had  ended  by  becoming  an  aggregation  of 
negatives.  Gaston's  wing,  taken  by  itself,  has 
much  of  the  bel  <?:/>  which  was  to  belong  to  the 
architecture  of  Louis  XIV.  ;  but,  taken  in  con- 
trast to  its  flowering,  laughing,  living  neighbor, 
it  marks  the  difference  between  inspiration  and 
calculation.  We  scarcely  grudge  it  its  place,  how- 
ever, for  it  adds  a  price  to  the  rest  of  the  pile. 

We  have  entered  the  court,  by  the  way,  by 
jumping    over    the    walls.     The    more    orthodox 


BLOIS  35 

method  is  to  follow  a  modern  terrace  which  leads 
to  the  left,  from  the  side  of  the  edifice  that  I  be- 
gan by  speaking  of,  and  passes  round,  ascending, 
to  a  little  square  on  a  considerably  higher  level,  a 
square  not,  like  the  rather  prosaic  space  on  which 
the  back  (as  I  have  called  it)  looks  out,  a  thorough- 
fare. This  small  empty  place ^  oblong  in  form, 
at  once  bright  and  quiet,  and  which  ought  to  be 
grass-grown,  offers  an  excellent  setting  to  the 
entrance-front  of  the  palace  —  the  wing  of  Louis 
XII.  The  restoration  here  has  been  lavish ;  but 
it  was  perhaps  but  an  inevitable  reaction  against 
the  injuries,  still  more  lavish,  by  which  the  unfor- 
tunate building  had  long  been  overwhelmed.  It 
had  fallen  into  a  state  of  ruinous  neglect,  relieved 
only  by  the  misuse  proceeding  from  successive 
generations  of  soldiers,  for  whom  its  charming 
chambers  served  as  barrack-room.  Whitewashed, 
mutilated,  dishonored,  the  castle  of  Blois  may  be 
said  to  have  escaped  simply  with  its  life.  This  is 
the  history  of  Amboise  as  well,  and  is  to  a  certain 
extent  the  history  of  Chambord.  Delightful,  at 
any  rate,  was  the  refreshed  facade  of  Louis  XII. 
as  I  stood  and  looked  at  it  one  bright  Septem- 
ber morning.  In  that  soft,  clear,  merry  light  of 
Touraine,  everything  shows,  everything  speaks. 
Charming  are  the  taste,  the  happy  proportions, 
the  color  of   this   beautiful   front,  to   which  the 


36    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

new  feeling  for  a  purely  domestic  architecture  — 
an  architecture  of  security  and  tranquillity,  in 
which  art  could  indulge  itself  —  gave  an  air  of 
youth  and  gladness.  It  is  true  that  for  a  long 
time  to  come  the  castle  of  Blois  was  neither  very 
safe  nor  very  quiet ;  but  its  dangers  came  from 
within,  from  the  evil  passions  of  its  inhabitants, 
and  not  from  siege  or  invasion.  The  front  of 
Louis  XII.  is  of  red  brick,  crossed  here  and  there 
with  purple ;  and  the  purple  slate  of  the  high  roof, 
relieved  with  chimneys  beautifully  treated  and 
with  the  embroidered  caps  of  pinnacles  and  arches, 
with  the  porcupine  of  Louis,  the  ermine  and  the 
festooned  rope  which  formed  the  devices  of  Anne 
of  Brittany  —  the  tone  of  this  decorative  roof 
carries  out  the  mild  glow  of  the  wall.  The  wide, 
fair  windows  open  as  if  they  had  expanded  to  let 
in  the  rosy  dawn  of  the  Renaissance.  Charming, 
for  that  matter,  are  the  windows  of  all  the  chateaux 
of  Touraine,  with  their  squareness  corrected  (as  it 
is  not  in  the  Tudor  architecture)  by  the  curve  of 
the  upper  corners,  which  gives  this  line  the  look, 
above  the  expressive  aperture,  of  a  penciled  eye- 
brow. The  low  door  of  this  front  is  crowned  by 
a  high,  deep  niche,  in  which,  under  a  splendid 
canopy,  stiffly-astride  of  a  stiffly-draped  charger, 
sits  in  profile  an  image  of  the  good  King  Louis. 
Good  as  he  had  been  —  the  father  of  his  people, 


BLOIS  37 

as  he  was  called  (I  believe  he  remitted  various 
taxes)  —  he  was  not  good  enough  to  pass  muster 
at  the  Revolution ;  and  the  effigy  I  have  just  de- 
scribed is  no  more  than  a  reproduction  of  the 
primitive  statue  demolished  at  that  period. 

Pass  beneath  it  into  the  court,  and  the  sixteenth 
century  closes  round  you.  It  is  a  pardonable 
flight  of  fancy  to  say  that  the  expressive  faces  of 
an  age  in  which  human  passions  lay  very  near  the 
surface  seem  to  peep  out  at  you  from  the  windows, 
from  the  balconies,  from  the  thick  foliage  of  the 
sculpture.  The  portion  of  the  wing  of  Louis  XII. 
that  fronts  toward  the  court  is  supported  on  a 
deep  arcade.  On  your  right  is  the  wing  erected 
by  Francis  I.,  the  reverse  of  the  mass  of  building 
which  you  see  on  approaching  the  castle.  This 
exquisite,  this  extravagant,  this  transcendent  piece 
of  architecture  is  the  most  joyous  utterance  of  the 
French  Renaissance.  It  is  covered  with  an  em- 
broidery of  sculpture  in  which  every  detail  is 
worthy  of  the  hand  of  a  goldsmith.  In  the  middle 
of  it,  or  rather  a  little  to  the  left,  rises  the  famous 
winding  staircase  (plausibly,  but  I  believe  not 
religiously,  restored),  which  even  the  ages  which 
most  misused  it  must  vaguely  have  admired.  It 
forms  a  kind  of  chiseled  cylinder,  with  wide  inter- 
stices, so  that  the  stairs  are  open  to  the  air.  Every 
inch  of  this  structure,  of  its  balconies,  its  pillars, 


38     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

its  great  central  columns,  is  wrought  over  with 
lovely  images,  strange  and  ingenious  devices,  prime 
among  which  is  the  great  heraldic  salamander  of 
Francis  I.  The  salamander  is  everywhere  at  Blois 
' —  over  the  chimneys,  over  the  doors,  on  the  walls. 
This  whole  quarter  of  the  castle  bears  the  stamp 
of  that  eminently  pictorial  prince.  The  nmning 
cornice  along  the  top  of  the  front  is  like  an  un- 
folded, an  elongated  bracelet.  The  windows  of 
the  attic  are  like  shrines  for  saints.  The  gargoyles, 
the  medallions,  the  statuettes,  the  festoons  are 
like  the  elaboration  of  some  precious  cabinet 
rather  than  the  details  of  a  building  exposed  to 
the  weather  and  to  the  ages.  In  the  interior 
there  is  a  profusion  of  restoration,  and  it  is  all 
restoration  in  color.  This  has  been,  evidently,  a 
work  of  great  energy  and  cost,  but  it  will  easily 
strike  you  as  overdone.  The  universal  freshness 
is  a  discord,  a  false  note ;  it  seems  to  light  up  the 
dusky  past  with  an  unnatural  glare.  Begun  in  the 
reign  of  Louis  Philippe,  this  terrible  process  — 
the  more  terrible  always  the  better  case  you  con- 
ceive made  out  for  it  —  has  been  carried  so  far 
that  there  is  now  scarcely  a  square  inch  of  the  in- 
terior that  preserves  the  color  of  the  past.  It  is 
true  that  the  place  had  been  so  coated  over  with 
modern  abuse  that  something  was  needed  to  keep 
it  alive ;  it  is  only  perhaps  a  pity  the  clever  doc- 


B  L  O I S  39 

tors,  not  content  with  saving  its  life,  should  have 
undertaken  to  restore  its  bloom.  The  love  of  con- 
sistency, in  such  a 'business,  is  a  dangerous  lure. 
All  the  old  apartments  have  been  rechristened,  as 
it  were ;  the  geography  of  the  castle  has  been  re- 
established. The  guard-rooms,  the  bed-rooms,  the 
closets,  the  oratories  have  recovered  their  identity. 
Every  spot  connected  with  the  murder  of  the 
Duke  of  Guise  is  pointed  out  by  a  small,  shrill 
boy,  who  takes  you  from  room  to  room  and  who 
has  learned  his  lesson  in  perfection.  The  place  is 
full  of  Catherine  de'  Medici,  of  Henry  III.,  of 
memories,  of  ghosts,  of  echoes,  of  possible  evoca- 
tions and  revivals.  It  is  covered  with  crimson  and 
gold.  The  fireplaces  and  the  ceiling  are  magnifi- 
cent ;  they  look  like  expensive  "  sets  "  at  the  grand 
opera. 

I  should  have  mentioned  that  below,  in  the 
court,  the  front  of  the  wing  of  Gaston  d' Orleans 
faces  you  as  you  enter,  so  that  the  place  is  a 
course  of  French  history.  Inferior  in  beauty  and 
grace  to  the  other  portions  of  the  castle,  the  wing 
is  yet  a  nobler  monument  than  the  memory  of 
Gaston  deserves.  The  second  of  the  sons  of 
Henry  IV.  —  who  was  no  more  fortunate  as  a 
father  than  as  a  husband  —  younger  brother  of 
Louis  XIII.  and  father  of  the  great  Mademoiselle, 
the  most  celebrated,  most  ambitious,  most  self- 


40    A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

complacent  and  most  unsuccessful  fille  a  marier 
in  French  history,  passed  in  enforced  retirement 
at  the  castle  of  Blois  the  close  of  a  life  of  clumsy 
intrigues  against  Cardinal  Richelieu,  in  which  his 
rashness  was  only  equaled  by  his  pusillanimity 
and  his  ill-luck  by  his  inaccessibility  to  correction, 
and  which,  after  so  many  follies  and  shames,  was 
properly  summed  up  in  the  project  —  begun,  but 
not  completed  —  of  demolishing  the  beautiful  hab- 
itation of  his  exile  in  order  to  erect  a  better  one. 
With  Gaston  d' Orleans,  however,  who  lived  there 
without  dignity,  the  history  of  the  Chateau  de 
Blois  declines.  Its  interesting  period  is  that  of 
the  wars  of  religion.  It  was  the  chief  residence 
of  Henry  III.,  and  the  scene  of  the  principal 
events  of  his  depraved  and  dramatic  rule.  It  has 
been  restored  more  than  enough,  as  I  have  said, 
by  architects  and  decorators ;  the  visitor,  as  he 
moves  through  its  empty  rooms,  which  are  at  once 
brilliant  and  ill-lighted  (they  have  not  been  re- 
furnished), undertakes  a  little  restoration  of  his 
own.  His  imagination  helps  itself  from  the  things 
that  remain ;  he  tries  to  see  the  life  of  the  six- 
teenth century  in  its  form  and  dress  ^  its  tur- 
bulence, its  passions,  its  loves  and  hates,  its 
treacheries,  falsities,  sincerities,  faith,  its  latitude 
of  personal  development,  its  presentation  of  the 
whole  nature,  its  nobleness  of  costume,  charm  of 


BLOIS  41 

speech,  splendor  of  taste,  unequaled  picturesque- 
ness.  The  picture  is  full  of  movement,  of  con- 
trasted light  and  darkness,  full  altogether  of 
abominations.  Mixed  up  with  them  all  is  the 
great  theological  motive,  so  that  the  drama  wants 
little  to  make  it  complete.  What  episode  was 
ever  more  perfect  —  looked  at  as  a  dramatic  oc- 
currence—  than  the  murder  of  the  Duke  of  Guise.!* 
The  insolent  prosperity  of  the  victim  ;  the  weak- 
ness, the  vices,  the  terrors,  of  the  author  of  the 
deed  ;  the  perfect  execution  of  the  plot ;  the  accu- 
mulation of  horror  in  what  followed  it  —  render  it, 
as  a  crime,  one  of  the  classic  things. 

But  we  must  not  take  the  Chateau  de  Blois  too 
hard  :  I  went  there,  after  all,  by  way  of  entertain- 
ment. If  among  these  sinister  memories  your 
visit  should  threaten  to  prove  a  tragedy,  there  is 
an  excellent  way  of  removing  the  impression.  You 
may  treat  yourself  at  Blois  to  a  very  cheerful  after- 
piece. There  is  a  charming  industry  practiced 
there,  and  practiced  in  charming  conditions.  Fol- 
low the  bright  little  quay  down  the  river  till  you 
get  quite  out  of  the  town  and  reach  the  point 
where  the  road  beside  the  Loire  becomes  sinuous 
and  attractive,  turns  the  corner  of  diminutive 
headlands  and  makes  you  wonder  what  is  beyond. 
Let  not  your  curiosity  induce  you,  however,  to 
pass  by  a  modest  white  villa  which  overlooks  the 


42     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

stream,  inclosed  in  a  fresh  little  court ;  for  here 
dwells  an  artist  —  an  artist  in  faience.  There  is 
no  sort  of  sign,  and  the  place  looks  peculiarly  pri- 
vate. But  if  you  ring  at  the  gate  you  will  not  be 
turned  away.  You  will,  on  the  contrary,  be  ushered 
upstairs  into  a  parlor  —  there  is  nothing  resembling 
a  shop  —  encumbered  with  specimens  of  remark- 
ably handsome  pottery.  The  ware  is  of  the  best, 
a  careful  reproduction  of  old  forms,  colors,  de- 
vices ;  and  the  master  of  the  estabHshment  is  one 
of  those  completely  artistic  types  that  are  often 
found  in  France.  His  reception  is  as  friendly  as 
his  work  is  ingenious ;  and  I  think  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say  that  you  like  the  work  better  because 
he  has  produced  it.  His  vases,  cups,  and  jars, 
lamps,  platters,  plaques,  with  their  brilliant  glaze, 
their  innumerable  figures,  their  family  likeness 
and  wide  variations,  are  scattered  through  his 
occupied  rooms ;  they  serve  at  once  as  his  stock- 
in-trade  and  as  household  ornament.  As  we  all 
know,  this  is  an  age  of  prose,  of  machinery,  of 
wholesale  production,  of  coarse  and  hasty  pro- 
cesses. But  one  brings  away  from  the  establish- 
ment of  the  very  intelligent  M.  Ulysse  the  sense 
of  a  less  eager  activity  and  a  greater  search  for 
perfection.  He  has  but  a  few  workmen  and  he 
gives  them  plenty  of  time.  The  place  makes  a 
little  vignette,  leaves  an  impression  —  the  quiet 


BLOIS  43 

white  house  in  its  garden  on  the  road  by  the  wide, 
clear  river,  without  the  smoke,  the  bustle,  the 
ugliness,  of  so  much  of  our  modern  industry.  It 
struck  me  as  an  effort  Mr.  Ruskin  might  have  in- 
spired and  Mr.  William  Morris  —  though  that  be 
much  to  say  —  have  forgiven. 


V 

CHAMBORD 

THE  second  time  I  went  to  Blois  I  took  a 
carriage  for  Chambord,  and  came  back  by 
the  Chateau  de  Cheverny  and  the  forest  of  Russy 

—  a  charming  httle  expedition,  to  which  the  beauty 
of  the  afternoon  (the  finest  in  a  rainy  season  that 
was  spotted  with  bright  days)  contributed  not  a 
Httle.  To  go  to  Chambord  you  cross  the  Loire, 
leave  it  on  one  side,  and  strike  away  through  a 
country  in  which  salient  features  become  less  and 
less  numerous,  and  which  at  last  has  no  other 
quality  than  a  look  of  intense  and  peculiar  rurality 

—  the  characteristic,  even  when  it  be  not  the 
charm,  of  so  much  of  the  landscape  of  France. 
This  is  not  the  appearance  of  wildness,  for  it  goes 
with  great  cultivation  ;  it  is  simply  the  presence  of 
the  delving,  drudging,  economizing  peasant.  But 
it  is  a  deep,  unrelieved  rusticity.  It  is  a  peasant's 
landscape ;  not,  as  in  England,  a  landlord's.  On 
the  way  to  Chambord  you  enter  the  flat  and  sandy 
Sologne.  The  wide  horizon  opens  out  like  a  great 
potagevy  without   interruptions,  without   an   emi- 


CHAMBORD  45 

nence,  with  here  and  there  a  long,  low  stretch  of 
wood.  There  is  an  absence  of  hedges,  fences, 
signs  of  property ;  everything  is  absorbed  in  the 
general  flatness  —  the  patches  of  vineyard,  the 
scattered  cottages,  the  villages,  the  children 
(planted  and  staring  and  almost  always  pretty), 
the  women  in  the  fields,  the  white  caps,  the  faded 
blouses,  the  big  sabots.  At  the  end  of  an  hour's 
drive  (they  assure  you  at  Blois  that  even  with  two 
horses  you  will  spend  double  that  time)  I  passed 
through  a  sort  of  gap  in  a  wall  which  does  duty  as 
the  gateway  of  the  domain  of  a  proscribed  pre- 
tender. I  followed  a  straight  avenue  through  a 
disfeatured  park  —  the  park  of  Chambord  has 
twenty-one  miles  of  circumference  ;  a  very  sandy, 
scrubby,  melancholy  plantation,  in  which  the  tim- 
ber must  have  been  cut  many  times  over  and  is 
to-day  a  mere  tangle  of  brushwood.  Here,  as  in 
so  many  spots  in  France,  the  traveler  perceives 
that  he  is  in  a  land  of  revolutions.  Nevertheless, 
its  great  extent  and  the  long  perspective  of  its 
avenues  give  this  frugal  shrubbery  a  certain 
state ;  just  as  its  shabbiness  places  it  in  agree- 
ment with  one  of  the  strongest  impressions  await- 
ing you.  You  pursue  one  of  these  long  perspectives 
a  proportionate  time,  and  at  last  you  see  the  chim- 
neys and  pinnacles  of  Chambord  rise  apparently 
out  of   the  ground.     The   filling-in  of   the  wide 


46     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

moats  that  formerly  surrounded  it  has,  in  vulgar 
parlance,  let  it  down  and  given  it  a  monstrous 
over-crowned  air  that  is  at  the  same  time  a  mag- 
'  nificent  Orientalism.  The  towers,  the  turrets,  the 
cupolas,  the  gables,  the  lanterns,  the  chimneys, 
look  more  like  the  spires  of  a  city  than  the  salient 
points  of  a  single  building.  You  emerge  from  the 
avenue  and  find  yourself  at  the  foot  of  an  enor- 
mous fantastic  mass.  Chambord  has  a  strange 
mixture  of  society  and  solitude.  A  little  village 
clusters  within  view  of  its  liberal  windows,  and  a 
couple  of  inns  near  by  offer  entertainment  to  pil- 
grims. These  things  of  course  are  incidents  of 
the  political  proscription  which  hangs  its  thick 
veil  over  the  place.  Chambord  is  truly  royal  — 
royal  in  its  great  scale,  its  grand  air,  its  indiffer- 
ence to  common  considerations.  If  a  cat  may 
look  at  a  king,  a  tavern  may  look  at  a  palace.  I 
enjoyed  my  visit  to  this  extraordinary  structure  as 
much  as  if  I  had  been  a  legitimist ;  and  indeed 
there  is  something  interesting  in  any  monument 
of  a  great  system,  any  bold  presentation  of  a 
tradition. 

You  leave  your  vehicle  at  one  of  the  inns,  which 
are  very  decent  and  tidy,  and  in  which  every  one 
is  very  civil,  as  if  in  this  latter  respect  the  neigh- 
borhood of  a  Court  veritably  set  the  fashion,  and 
you  proceed  across  the  grass  and  the  gravel  to  a 


CHAMBORD  47 

small  door,  a  door  infinitely  subordinate  and  con- 
ferring no  title  of  any  kind  on  those  who  enter  it. 
Here  you  ring  a  bell,  which  a  highly  respectable 
person  answers  (a  person  perceptibly  affiliated, 
again,  to  the  old  regime),  after  which  she  ushers 
you  over  a  vestibule  into  an  inner  court.  Perhaps 
the  strongest  impression  I  got  at  Chambord  came 
to  me  as  I  stood  in  this  court.  The  woman  who 
admitted  me  did  not  come  with  me ;  I  was  to  find 
my  guide  somewhere  else.  The  specialty  of 
Chambord  is  its  prodigious  round  towers.  There 
are,  I  believe,  no  less  than  eight  of  them,  placed 
at  each  angle  of  the  inner  and  outer  square  of 
buildings  ;  for  the  castle  is  in  the  form  of  a  larger 
structure  which  incloses  a  smaller  one.  One  of 
these  towers  stood  before  me  in  the  court  ;  it 
seemed  to  fling  its  shadow  over  the  place ;  while 
above,  as  I  looked  up,  the  pinnacles  and  gables, 
the  enormous  chimneys,  soared  Jnto  the  bright 
blue  air.  The  place  was  empty  ancf  silent ;  shadows 
of  gargoyles,  of  extraordinary  projections,  were 
thrown  across  the  clear  gray  surfaces.  One  felt 
that  the  whole  thing  was  monstrous.  A  cicerone 
appeared,  a  languid  young  man  in  a  rather  shabby 
livery,  and  led  me  about  with  a  mixture  of  the 
impatient  and  the  desultory,  of  condescension  and 
humility.  I  do  not  profess  to  understand  the  plan 
of  Chambord,  and  I  may  add  that  I  do  not  even 


48     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

desire  to  do  so  ;  for  it  is  much  more  entertaining 
to  think  of  it,  as  you  can  so  easily,  as  an  irrespon- 
sible, insoluble  labyrinth.  Within  it  is  a  wilderness 
of  empty  chambers,  a  royal  and  romantic  barrack. 
The  exiled  prince  to  whom  it  gives  its  title  has 
not  the  means  to  keep  up  four  hundred  rooms ; 
he  contents  himself  with  preserving  the  huge  out- 
side. The  repairs  of  the  prodigious  roof  alone 
must  absorb  a  large  part  of  his  revenue.  The 
great  feature  of  the  interior  is  the  celebrated 
double  staircase,  rising  straight  through  the  build- 
ing, with  two  courses  of  steps,  so  that  people  may 
ascend  and  descend  without  meeting.  This  stair- 
case is  a  truly  majestic  piece  of  humor ;  it  gives 
you  the  note,  as  it  were,  of  Chambord.  It  opens 
on  each  landing  to  a  vast  guard-room,  in  four 
arms,  radiations  of  the  winding  shaft.  My  guide 
made  me  climb  to  the  great  open-work  lantern 
which,  springing  from  the  roof  at  the  termination 
of  the  rotund  staircase  (surmounted  here  by  a 
smaller  one),  forms  the  pinnacle  of  the  bristling 
crown  of  the  pile.  This  lantern  is  tipped  with  a 
huge  fleur-de-lis  in  stone  —  the  only  one,  I  be- 
lieve, that  the  Revolution  did  not  succeed  in  pull- 
ing down.  Here,  from  narrow  windows,  you  look 
over  the  wide,  flat  country  and  the  tangled,  mel- 
ancholy park,  with  the  rotation  of  its  straight 
avenues.    Then  you  walk  about  the  roof  in  a  com- 


CHAMBORD  49 

plication  of  galleries,  terraces,  balconies,  through 
the  multitude  of  chimneys  and  gables.  This  roof, 
which  is  in  itself  a  sort  of  castle  in  the  air,  has 
an  extravagant,  fabulous  quality,  and  with  its  pro- 
fuse ornamentation  — the  salamander  of  Francis  I. 
is  a  constant  motive  —  its  lonely  pavements,  its 
sunny  niches,  the  balcony  that  looks  down  over 
the  closed  and  grass  -  grown  main  entrance,  a 
strange,  half-sad,  half -brilliant  charm.  The  stone- 
work is  covered  with  fine  mould.  There  are 
places  that  reminded  me  of  some  of  those  quiet 
mildewed  corners  of  courts  and  terraces  into 
which  the  traveler  who  wanders  through  the  Vati- 
can looks  down  from  neglected  windows.  They 
show  you  two  or  three  furnished  rooms,  with 
Bourbon  portraits,  hideous  tapestries  from  the 
ladies  of  France,  a  collection  of  the  toys  of  the 
enfant  du  miracle,  all  military  and  of  the  finest 
make.  "  Tout  cela  fonctionne,"  the  guide  said 
of  these  miniature  weapons ;  and  I  wondered,  if 
he  should  take  it  into  his  head  to  fire  off  his  little 
cannon,  how  much  harm  the  Comte  de  Cham- 
bord  would  do. 

From  below  the  castle  would  look  crushed  by 
the  redundancy  of  its  upper  protuberances  if  it 
were  not  for  the  enormous  girth  of  its  round 
towers,  which  appear  to  give  it  a  robust  lateral 
development.      These  towers,   however,    fine  as 


50    A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

they  are  in  their  way,  struck  me  as  a  little  stupid ; 
they  are  the  exaggeration  of  an  exaggeration.  In 
a  building  erected  after  the  days  of  defense  and 
proclaiming  its  peaceful  character  from  its  hun- 
dred embroideries  and  cupolas,  they  seem  to  indi- 
cate a  want  of  invention.  I  shall  risk  the  accusa- 
tion of  bad  taste  if  I  say  that,  impressive  as  it 
is,  the  Chateau  de  Chambord  seemed  to  me  to 
have  altogether  a  touch  of  that  quality  of  stupidity. 
The  trouble  is  that  it  stands  for  nothing  very 
momentous  ;  it  has  not  happened,  in  spite  of  sun- 
dry vicissitudes,  to  have  a  strongly  marked  career. 
Compared  with  that  of  Blois  and  Amboise  its  past 
is  rather  vacant ;  and  one  feels  to  a  certain  extent 
the  contrast  between  its.pompous  appearance  and 
its  spacious  but  somewhat  colorless  annals.  It 
had  indeed  the  good  fortune  to  be  erected  by 
Francis  L,  whose  name  by  itself  expresses  a  good 
deal  of  history.  Why  he  should  have  built  a 
palace  in  those  sandy  plains  will  ever  remain  an 
unanswered  question,  for  kings  have  never  been 
obliged  to  give  reasons.  In  addition  to  the  fact 
that  the  country  was  rich  in  game  and  that  Fran- 
cis was  a  passionate  hunter,  it  is  suggested  by 
M.  de  la  Saussaye,  the  author  of  the  very  complete 
little  account  of  the  place  which  you  may  buy  at 
the  bookseller's  at  Blois,  that  he  was  governed  in 
his  choice  of  the  site  by  the  chance  that  a  charm- 


CHAMBORD  51 

ing  woman  had  previously  lived  there.  The 
Comtesse  de  Thoury  had  a  manor  in  the  neigh- 
borhood, and  the  Comtesse  de  Thoury  had  been 
the  object  of  a  youthful  passion  on  the  part  of  the 
most  susceptible  of  princes  before  his  accession 
to  the  throne.  This  great  pile  was  reared,  there- 
fore, according  to  M.  de  la  Saussaye,  as  a  souvenir 
de  premieres  amours  !  It  is  certainly  a  very  mas- 
sive memento  ;  and  if  these  tender  passages  were 
proportionate  to  the  building  that  commemorates 
them  the  flame  blazed  indeed.  There  has  been 
much  discussion  as  to  the  architect  employed  by 
Francis  L,  and  the  honor  of  having  designed  this 
splendid  residence  has  been  claimed  for  several  of 
the  Italian  artists  who  early  in  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury came  to  seek  patronage  in  France.  It  seems 
well  established  to-day,  however,  that  Chambord 
was  the  work  neither  of  Primaticcio,  of  Vignola, 
nor  of  II  Rosso,  all  of  whom  have  left  some  trace 
of  their  sojourn  in  France  ;  but  of  an  obscure,  yet 
very  complete  genius,  Pierre  Nepveu,  known  as 
Pierre  Trinqueau,  who  is  designated  in  the  papers 
which  preserve  in  some  degree  the  history  of  the 
origin  of  the  edifice,  as  the  maistre  de  Vcetivre 
de  magonnerie.  Behind  this  modest  title,  appar- 
ently, we  must  recognize  one  of  the  most  original 
talents  of  the  French  Renaissance ;  and  it  is  a 
proof  of  the  vigor  of  the  artistic  life  of  that  period 


52     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

that,  brilliant  production  being  everywhere  abun- 
dant, an  artist  of  so  high  a  value  should  not  have 
been  treated  by  his  contemporaries  as  a  celebrity. 
We  make  our  celebrities  to-day  at  smaller  cost. 

The  immediate  successors  of  Francis  I.  con- 
tinued to  visit  Chambord ;  but  it  was  neglected  by 
Henry  IV.  and  was  never  afterwards  a  favorite 
residence  of  any  French  king.  Louis  XIV.  ap- 
peared there  on  several  occasions,  and  the  appari- 
tion was  characteristically  brilliant ;  but  Chambord 
could  not  long  detain  a  monarch  who  had  gone 
to  the  expense  of  creating  a  Versailles  ten  miles 
from  Paris.  With  Versailles,  Fontainebleau,  Saint- 
Germain,  and  Saint-Cloud  within  easy  reach  of 
their  capital,  the  later  French  sovereigns  had  little 
reason  to  take  the  air  in  the  dreariest  province  of 
their  kingdom.  Chambord  therefore  suffered  from 
royal  indifference,  though  in  the  last  century  a 
use  was  found  for  its  deserted  halls.  In  1725  it 
was  occupied  by  the  luckless  Stanislaus  Leczynski, 
who  spent  the  greater  part  of  his  life  in  being 
elected  King  of  Poland  and  being  ousted  from  his 
throne,  and  who,  at  this  time  a  refugee  in  France, 
had  found  a  compensation  for  some  of  his  misfor- 
tunes in  marrying  his  daughter  to  Louis  XV.  He 
lived  eight  years  at  Chambord  and  filled  up  the 
moats  of  the  castle.  In  1748  it  found  an  illustri- 
ous tenant  in  the  person  of  Maurice  de  Saxe,  the 


CHAMBORD  53 

victor  of  P'ontenoy,  who,  however,  two  years  after 
he  had  taken  possession  of  it,  terminated  a  Hfe 
which  would  have  been  longer  had  he  been  less 
determined  to  make  it  agreeable.  The  Revolu- 
tion, of  course,  was  not  kind  to  Chambord.  It 
despoiled  it  in  so  far  as  possible  of  every  vestige 
of  its  royal  origin  and  swept  like  a  whirlwind 
through  apartments  to  which  upwards  of  two  cen- 
turies had  contributed  a  treasure  of  decoration 
and  furniture.  In  that  wild  blast  these  precious 
things  were  destroyed  or  forever  scattered.  In 
1 79 1  an  odd  proposal  was  made  to  the  French 
Government  by  a  company  of  English  Quakers 
who  had  conceived  the  bold  idea  of  establishing 
in  the  palace  a  manufacture  of  some  peaceful 
commodity  not  to-day  recorded.  Napoleon  al- 
lotted Chambord,  as  a  "dotation,"  to  one  of  his 
marshals,  Berthier,  for  whose  benefit  it  was  con- 
verted, in  Napoleonic  fashion,  into  the  so-called 
principality  of  Wagram.  By  the  Princess  of  Wa- 
gram,  the  marshal's  widow,  it  was,  after  the  Re- 
storation, sold  to  the  trustees  of  a  national  sub- 
scription which  had  been  established  for  the 
purpose  of  presenting  it  to  the  infant  Duke  of 
Bordeaux,  then  prospective  King  of  France.  The 
presentation  was  duly  made,  but  the  Comte  de 
Chambord,  who  had  changed  his  title  in  recogni- 
tion of  the  gift,  was  despoiled  of  his  property  by 


54     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

the  government  of  Louis  Philippe.  He  appealed 
for  redress  to  the  tribunals  of  his  country ;  and 
the  consequence  of  his  appeal  was  an  intermina- 
ble litigation,  by  which,  however,  finally,  after  the 
lapse  of  twenty-five  years,  he  was  established  in 
his  rights.  In  1871  he  paid  his  first  visit  to  the 
domain  which  had  been  offered  him  half  a  century 
before,  a  term  of  which  he  had  spent  forty  years 
in  exile.  It  was  from  Chambord  that  he  dated 
his  famous  letter  of  the  5th  of  July  of  that  year  — 
the  letter,  directed  to  his  so-called  subjects,  in 
which  he  waves  aloft  the  white  flag  of  the  Bour- 
bons. This  rare  miscalculation  —  virtually  an  in- 
vitation to  the  French  people  to  repudiate,  as  their 
national  ensign,  that  immortal  tricolor,  the  flag 
of  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire,  under  which 
they  have  won  the  glory  which  of  all  glories  has 
hitherto  been  dearest  to  them  and  which  is  asso- 
ciated with  the  most  romantic,  the  most  heroic, 
the  epic,  the  consolatory,  period  of  their  history  — 
this  luckless  manifesto,  I  say,  appears  to  give  the 
measure  of  the  political  wisdom  of  the  excellent 
Henry  V.  The  proposal  should  have  had  less 
simplicity  or  the  people  less  irony. 

On  the  whole  Chambord  makes  a  great  impres- 
sion ;  and  the  hour  I  was  there,  while  the  yellow 
afternoon  light  slanted  upon  the  September  woods, 
there  was  a  dignity  in  its  desolation.     It  spoke 


CHAMBORD  55 

with  a  muffled  but  audible  voice  of  the  vanished 
monarchy,  which  had  been  so  strong,  so  splendid, 
but  to-day  had  become  a  vision  almost  as  fantastic 
as  the  cupolas  and  chimneys  that  rose  before  me. 
I  thought,  while  I  lingered  there,  of  all  the  fine 
things  it  takes  to  make  up  such  a  monarchy  ;  and 
how  one  of  them  is  a  superfluity  of  mouldering, 
empty  palaces.  Chambord  is  touching  —  that  is 
the  best  word  for  it ;  and  if  the  hopes  of  another 
restoration  are  in  the  follies  of  the  Republic,  a 
little  reflection  on  that  eloquence  of  ruin  ought  to 
put  the  Republic  on  its  guard.  A  sentimental 
tourist  may  venture  to  remark  that  in  presence  of 
all  the  haunted  houses  that  appeal  in  this  mys- 
tical manner  to  the  retrospective  imagination  it 
cannot  afford  to  be  foolish.  I  thought  of  all  this 
as  I  drove  back  to  Blois  by  the  way  of  the  Chateau 
de  Cheverny.  The  road  took  us  out  of  the  park 
of  Chambord,  but  through  a  region  of  flat  woodland, 
where  the  trees  were  not  mighty,  and  again  into 
the  prosy  plain  of  the  Sologne  —  a  thankless  soil 
to  sow,  I  believe,  but  lately  much  amended  by  the 
magic  of  cheerful  French  industry  and  thrift.  The 
light  had  already  begun  to  fade,  and  my  drive 
reminded  me  of  a  passage  in  some  rural  novel 
of  Madame  Sand.  I  passed  a  couple  of  timber 
and  plaster  churches,  which  looked  very  old,  black, 
and  crooked,   and  had  lumpish  wooden  porches 


56     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

and  galleries  encircling  the  base.  By  the  time 
I  reached  Cheverny  the  clear  twilight  had  ap- 
proached. It  was  late  to  ask  to  be  allowed  to 
visit  an  inhabited  house ;  but  it  was  the  hour  at 
which  I  like  best  to  visit  almost  anything.  My 
coachman  drew  up  before  a  gateway,  in  a  high 
wall,  which  opened  upon  a  short  avenue,  along 
which  I  took  my  way  on  foot ;  the  coachmen  in 
those  parts  being,  for  reasons  best  known  to  them- 
selves, mortally  averse  to  driving  up  to  a  house. 
I  answered  the  challenge  of  a  very  tidy  little  por- 
tress who  sat,  in  company  with  a  couple  of  chil- 
dren, enjoying  the  evening  air  in  front  of  her 
lodge  and  who  told  me  to  walk  a  little  further  and 
turn  to  the  right.  I  obeyed  her  to  the  letter,  and 
my  turn  brought  me  into  sight  of  a  house  as 
charming  as  an  old  manor  in  a  fairy  tale.  I  had 
but  a  rapid  and  partial  view  of  Cheverny;  but 
that  view  was  a  glimpse  of  perfection.  A  light, 
sweet  mansion  stood  looking  over  a  wide  green 
lawn,  over  banks  of  flowers  and  groups  of  trees. 
It  had  a  striking  character  of  elegance,  produced 
partly  by  a  series  of  Renaissance  busts  let  into 
circular  niches  in  the  fagade.  The  place  looked 
so  private,  so  reserved,  that  it  seemed  an  act  of 
violence  to  ring,  a  stranger  and  foreigner,  at  the 
graceful  door.  But  if  I  had  not  ruhg  I  should  be 
unable  to  express  —  as  it  is  such  a  pleasure  to  do 


CHAMBORD  57 

—  my  sense  of  the  exceeding  courtesy  with  which 
this  admirable  house  is  shown.  It  was  near  the 
dinner-hour  —  the  most  sacred  hour  of  the  day ; 
but  I  was  freely  conducted  into  the  inhabited 
apartments.  They  are  extremely  beautiful.  What 
I  chiefly  remember  is  the  charming  staircase  of 
white  embroidered  stone,  and  the  great  salle  des 
gardes  and  chambre  a  coucher  du  roi  on  the  second 
floor.  Cheverny,  built  in  1634,  is  of  a  much  later 
date  than  the  other  royal  residences  of  this  part 
of  France ;  it  belongs  to  the  end  of  the  Renais- 
sance and  has  a  touch  of  the  rococo.  The  guard- 
room is  a  superb  apartment ;  and  as  it  contains 
little  save  its  magnificent  ceiling  and  fireplace  and 
certain  dim  tapestries  on  its  walls,  you  the  more 
easily  take  the  measure  of  its  noble  proportions. 
The  servant  opened  the  shutters  of  a  single  win- 
dow, and  the  last  rays  of  the  twilight  slanted  into 
the  rich  brown  gloom.  It  was  in  the  same  pic- 
turesque fashion  that  I  saw  the  bedroom  (adjoin- 
ing) of  Henry  IV.,  where  a  legendary-looking  bed, 
draped  in  folds  long  unaltered,  defined  itself  in 
the  haunted  dusk.  Cheverny  remains  to  me  a 
very  charming,  a  partly  mysterious  vision.  I  drove 
back  to  Blois  in  the  dark,  some  nine  miles,  through 
the  forest  of  Russy,  which  belongs  to  the  State, 
and  which,  though  consisting  apparently  of  small 
timber,  looked  under  the  stars  sufficiently  vast  and 


58     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

primeval.  There  was  a  damp  autumnal  smell  and 
the  occasional  sound  of  a  stirring  thing ;  and  as 
I  moved  through  the  evening  air  I  thought  of 
Francis  I.  and  Henry  IV. 


VI 


AMBOISE 


YOU  may  go  to  Amboise  either  from  Blois  or 
from  Tours  ;  it  is  about  halfway  between 
these  towns.  The  great  point  is  to  go,  especially 
if  you  have  put  it  off  repeatedly ;  and  to  go,  if 
possible,  on  a  day  when  the  great  view  of  the 
Loire,  which  you  enjoy  from  the  battlements  and 
terraces,  presents  itself  under  a  friendly  sky. 
Three  persons,  of  whom  the  author  of  these  lines 
was  one,  spent  the  greater  part  of  a  perfect  Sun- 
day morning  in  looking  at  it.  It  was  astonishing, 
in  the  course  of  the  rainiest  season  in  the  memory 
of  the  oldest  Tourangeau,  how  many  perfect  days 


6o    A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

we  found  to  our  hand.  The  town  of  Amboise 
lies,  like  Tours,  on  the  left  bank  of  the  river  —  a 
little  white-faced  town  staring  across  an  admirable 
bridge  and  leaning,  behind,  as  it  were,  against  the 
pedestal  of  rock  on  which  the  dark  castle  masses 
itself.  The  town  is  so  small,  the  pedestal  so  big, 
and  the  castle  so  high  and  striking  that  the  clus- 
tered houses  at  the  base  of  the  rock  are  like  the 
crumbs  that  have  fallen  from  a  well-laden  table. 
You  pass  among  them,  however,  to  ascend  by  a 
circuit  to  the  chateau,  which  you  attack,  obliquely, 
from  behind.  It  is  the  property  of  the  Comte  de 
Paris,  another  pretender  to  the  French  throne ; 
having  come  to  him  remotely,  by  inheritance^  from 
his  ancestor,  the  Due  de  Penthievre,  who  toward 
the  close  of  the  last  century  bought  it  from  the 
Crown,  which  had  recovered  it  after  a  lapse.  Like 
the  castle  of  Blois  it  has  been  injured  and  defaced 
by  base  uses,  but,  unlike  the  castle  of  Blois,  it  has 
not  been  completely  restored.  "  It  is  very,  very 
dirty,  but  very  curious "  —  it  is  in  these  terms 
that  I  heard  it  described  by  an  English  lady  who 
was  generally  to  be  found  engaged  upon  a  tattered 
Tauchnitz  in  the  little  salon  de  lecture  of  the 
hotel  at  Tours.  The  description  is  not  inaccurate  ; 
but  it  should  be  said  that  if  part  of  the  dirtiness 
of  Amboise  is  the  result  of  its  having  served  for 
years  as  a  barrack  and  as  a  prison,  part  of  it  comes 


^:':Mm 


AMBOISE,   THE   CHATEAU 


•      c 


AM  BOISE  6i 

from  the  presence  of  restoring  stone-masons,  who 
have  woven  over  a  considerable  portion  of  it  a 
mask  of  scaffolding.  There  is  a  good  deal  of 
neatness  as  well,  and  the  restoration  of  some  of 
the  parts  seems  finished.  This  process,  at  Am- 
boise,  consists  for  the  most  part  simply  of  remov- 
ing the  vulgar  excrescences  of  the  last  two  cen- 
turies. 

The  interior  is  virtually  a  blank,  the  old  apart- 
ments having  been  chopped  up  into  small  modern 
rooms  ;  it  will  have  to  be  completely  reconstructed. 
A  worthy  woman  with  a  military  profile  and  that 
sharp,  positive  manner  which  the  goodwives  who 
show  you  through  the  chateaux  of  Touraine  are 
rather  apt  to  have,  and  in  whose  high  respect- 
ability, to  say  nothing  of  the  frill  of  her  cap  and 
the  cut  of  her  thick  brown  dress,  my  companions 
and  I  thought  we  discovered  the  particular  note, 
or  numtce^  of  Orleanism  —  a  competent,  appreci- 
ative, peremptory  person,  I  say  —  attended  us 
through  the  particularly  delightful  hour  we  spent 
upon  the  ramparts  of  Amboise.  Denuded  and 
disfeatured  within  and  bristling  without  with  brick- 
layers* ladders,  the  place  was  yet  extraordinarily 
impressive  and  interesting.  I  should  mention  that 
we  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  in  looking  at  the 
view.  Sweet  was  the  view,  and  magnificent ;  we 
preferred  it  so  much  to  certain  portions  of  the 


62     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

interior,  and  to  occasional  effusions  of  historical 
information,  that  the  old  lady  with  the  profile 
sometimes  lost  patience  with  us.  We  laid  our- 
selves open  to  the  charge  of  preferring  it  even  to 
the  little  chapel  of  Saint  Hubert,  which  stands  on 
the  edge  of  the  great  terrace,  and  has  over  the 
portal  a  wonderful  sculpture  of  the  miraculous 
hunt  of  that  holy  man.  In  the  way  of  plastic  art 
this  elaborate  scene  is  the  gem  of  Amboise.  It 
seemed  to  us  that  we  had  never  been  in  a  place 
where  there  are  so  many  points  of  vantage  to  look 
down  from.  In  the  matter  of  jDOsition  Amboise 
is  certainly  supreme  in  the  list  of  perched  places ; 
and  I  say  this  with  a  proper  recollection  of  the 
claims  of  Chaumont  and  of  Loches  —  which  latter, 
by  the  way  (the  afterthought  is  due),  is  not  on 
the  Loire.  The  platforms,  the  bastions,  the  ter- 
races, the  high-niched  windows  and  balconies,  the 
hanging  gardens  and  dizzy  crenellations  of  this 
complicated  structure,  keep  you  in  perpetual  inter- 
course with  an  immense  horizon.  The  great  fea- 
ture of  the  place  is  the  obligatory  round  tower 
which  occupies  the  northern  end  of  it,  and  which 
has  now  been  completely  restored.  It  is  of  as- 
tounding size,  a  fortress  in  itself,  and  contains, 
instead  of  a  staircase,  a  wonderful  inclined  plane, 
so  wide  and  gradual  that  a  coach  and  four  may  be 
driven   to   the   top.     This   colossal   cylinder  has 


AMBOISE  63 

to-day  no  visible  use ;  but  it  corresponds,  happily 
enough,  with  the  great  circle  of  the  prospect.  The 
gardens  of  Amboise,  lifted  high  aloft,  covering  the 
irregular  remnants  of  the  platform  on  which  the 
castle  stands  and  making  up  in  picturesqueness 
what  they  lack  in  extent,  constitute  of  course  but 
a  scanty  domain.  But  bathed,  as  we  found  them, 
in  the  autumn  sunshine  and  doubly  private  from 
their  aerial  site,  they  offered  irresistible  opportu- 
nities for  a  stroll  interrupted,  as  one  leaned  against 
their  low  parapets,  by  long  contemplative  pauses. 
I  remember  in  particular  a  certain  terrace  planted 
with  clipped  limes  upon  which  we  looked  down 
from  the  summit  of  the  big  tower.  It  seemed 
from  that  point  to  be  absolutely  necessary  to  one's 
happiness  to  go  down  and  spend  the  rest  of  the 
morning  there ;  it  was  an  ideal  place  to  walk  to 
and  fro  and  talk.  Our  venerable  conductress,  to 
whom  our  relation  had  gradually  become  more 
filial,  permitted  us  to  gratify  this  innocent  wish  — ■ 
to  the  extent,  that  is,  of  taking  a  turn  or  two 
under  the  mossy  tilleuls.  At  the  end  of  this  ter- 
race is  the  low  door,  in  a  w^all,  against  the  top  of 
which,  in  1498,  Charles  VIII.,  according  to  an 
accepted  tradition,  knocked  his  head  to  such  good 
purpose  that  he  died.  It  was  within  the  walls  of 
Amboise  that  his  widow,  Anne  of  Brittany,  al- 
ready in  mourning  for  three  children,  two  of  whom 


64    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

we  have  seen  commemorated  in  sepulchral  marble 
at  Tours,  spent  the  first  violence  of  that  grief 
which  was  presently  dispelled  by  a  union  with  her 
husband's  cousin  and  successor,  Louis  XII.  Am- 
boise  was  a  frequent  resort  of  the  French  Court 
during  the  sixteenth  century  ;  it  was  here  that  the 
young  Mary  Stuart  spent  sundry  hours  of  her  first 
marriage.  The  wars  of  religion  have  left  here  the 
ineffaceable  stain  which  they  left  wherever  they 
passed.  An  imaginative  visitor  at  Amboise  to-day 
may  fancy  that  the  traces  of  blood  are  mixed  with 
the  red  rust  on  the  crossed  iron  bars  of  the  grim- 
looking  balcony  to  which  the  heads  of  the  Hugue- 
nots executed  on  the  discovery  of  the  conspiracy 
of  La  Renaudie  are  rumored  to  have  been  sus- 
pended. There  was  room  on  the  stout  balustrade 
—  an  admirable  piece  of  work  —  for  a  ghastly 
array.  The  same  rumor  represents  Catherine  de' 
Medici  and  the  young  queen  as  watching  from 
this  balcony  the  noyades  of  the  captured  Hugue- 
nots in  the  Loire.  The  facts  of  history  are  bad 
enough ;  the  fictions  are,  if  possible,  worse ;  but 
there  is  little  doubt  that  the  future  Queen  of  Scots 
learnt  the  first  lessons  of  life  at  a  horrible  school. 
If  in  subsequent  years  she  was  a  prodigy  of  inno- 
cence and  virtue,  it  was  not  the  fault  of  her  whilom 
mother-in-law,  of  her  uncles  of  the  house  of  Guise, 
or  of  the  examples  presented  to  her  either  at  the 


AMBOISE  65 

windows  of  the  castle  of  Amboise  or  in  its  more 
private  recesses. 

It  was  difficult  to  believe  in  these  dark  deeds, 
however,  as  we  looked  through  the  golden  morn- 
ing at  the  placidity  of  the  far-shining  Loire.  The 
ultimate  consequence  of  this  spectacle  was  a 
desire  to  follow  the  river  as  far  as  the  castle  of 
Chaumont.  It  is  true  that  the  cruelties  practiced 
of  old  at  Amboise  might  have  seemed  less  phan- 
tasmal to  persons  destined  to  suffer  from  a  modern 
form  of  inhumanity.  The  mistress  of  the  little 
inn  at  the  base  of  the  castle-rock  —  it  stands  very 
pleasantly  beside  the  river,  and  we  had  breakfasted 
there  —  declared  to  us  that  the  Chateau  de  Chau- 
mont, which  is  often  during  the  autumn  closed  to 
visitors,  was  at  that  particular  moment  standing 
so  wide  open  to  receive  us  that  it  was  our  duty  to 
hire  one  of  her  carriages  and  drive  thither  with 
speed.  This  assurance  was  so  satisfactory  that 
we  presently  found  ourselves  seated  in  this  wily 
woman's  most  commodious  vehicle  and  rolling, 
neither  too  fast  nor  too  slow,  along  the  margin  of 
the  Loire.  The  drive  of  about  an  hour,  beneath 
constant  clumps  of  chestnuts,  was  charming 
enough  to  have  been  taken  for  itself ;  and  indeed 
when  we  reached  Chaumont  we  saw  that  our  re- 
ward was  to  be  simply  the  usual  reward  of  virtue, 
the  consciousness  of  having  attempted  the  right. 


66     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

The  Chateau  de  Chaumont  was  inexorably  closed  ; 
so  we  learned  from  a  talkative  lodge-keeper  who 
gave  what  grace  she  could  to  her  refusal.  This 
good  woman's  dilemma  was  almost  touching  ;  she 
wished  to  reconcile  two  impossibles.  The  castle 
was  not  to  be  visited,  for  the  family  of  its  master 
was  staying  there ;  and  yet  she  was  loath  to  turn 
away  a  party  of  which  she  was  good  enough  to  say 
that  it  had  a  grand  genre ;  for,  as  she  also  re- 
marked, she  had  her  living  to  earn.  She  tried  to 
arrange  a  compromise,  one  of  the  elements  of 
which  was  that  we  should  descend  from  our  car- 
riage and  trudge  up  a  hill  which  would  bring  us  to 
a  designated  point  where,  over  the  paling  of  the 
garden,  we  might  obtain  an  oblique  and  surrep- 
titious view  of  a  small  portion  of  the  castle  walls. 
This  suggestion  led  us  to  inquire  (of  each  other) 
to  what  degree  of  baseness  it  is  lawful  for  an  en- 
lightened lover  of  the  picturesque  to  resort  in 
order  not  to  have  a  blank  page  in  his  collection. 
One  of  our  trio  decided  characteristically  against 
any  form  of  derogation  ;  so  she  sat  in  the  carriage 
and  sketched  some  object  that  was  public  property 
while  her  two  companions,  who  were  not  so  proud, 
trudged  up  a  muddy  ascent  which  formed  a  kind 
of  back-stairs.  It  is  perhaps  no  more  than  they 
deserved  that  they  were  disappointed.  Chaumont 
is  feudal,  if  you  please ;  but  the  modern  spirit  is 


CHAUMONT,    FROM   THE    LOIRE 


(  •  • 

c  »  • 

c  «  •< 

c  »  • 


AMBOISE  67 

in  possession.  It  forms  a  vast  clean-scraped  mass, 
with  big  round  towers,  ungarnished  with  a  leaf  of 
ivy  or  a  patch  of  moss,  surrounded  by  gardens 
of  moderate  extent  (save  where  the  muddy  lane  of 
which  I  speak  passes  near  it),  and  looking  rather 
like  an  enormously  magnified  villa.  The  great 
merit  of  Chaumont  is  its  position,  which  almost 
exactly  resembles  that  of  Amboise ;  it  sweeps  the 
river  up  and  down  and  seems  to  look  over  half 
the  province.  This,  however,  was  better  appre- 
ciated as,  after  coming  down  the  hill  and  reenter- 
ing the  carriage,  we  drove  across  the  long  sus- 
pension-bridge which  crosses  the  Loire  j  ust  beyond 
the  village,  and  over  which  we  made  our  way  to 
the  small  station  of  Onzain,  at  the  farther  end,  to 
take  the  train  back  to  Tours.  Look  back  from 
the  middle  of  this  bridge  ;  the  whole  picture  com- 
poses, as  the  painters  say.  The  towers,  the 
pinnacles,  the  fair  front  of  the  chateau,  perched 
above  its  fringe  of  garden  and  the  rusty  roofs  of 
the  village  and  facing  the  afternoon  sky,  which  is 
reflected  also  in  the  great  stream  that  sweeps 
below,  all  this  makes  a  contribution  to  your  hap- 
piest memories  of  Touraine. 


VII 

CHENONCEAUX 

WE  never  went  to  Chinon  ;  it  was  a  fatality. 
We  planned  it  a  dozen  times ;  but  the 
weather  interfered,  or  the  trains  did  n't  suit,  or 
one  of  the  party  was  fatigued  with  the  adventures 
of  the  day  before.  This  excursion  was  so  much 
postponed  that  it  was  finally  postponed  to  every- 
thing. Besides,  we  had  to  go  to  Chenonceaux,  to 
Azay-le-Rideau,  to  Langeais,  to  Loches.  So  I 
have  not  the  memory  of  Chinon  ;  I  have  only  the 
regret.  But  regret,  as  well  as  memory,  has  its 
visions  ;  especially  when,  like  memory,  it  is  assisted 
by  photographs.  The  castle  of  Chinon  in  this  form 
appears  to  me  as  an  enormous  ruin,  a  mediaeval 
fortress  of  the  extent  almost  of  a  city.  It  covers 
a  hill  above  the  Vienne,  and  after  being  impreg- 
nable in  its  time  is  indestructible  to-day.  (I  risk 
this  phrase  in  the  face  of  the  prosaic  truth.  Chi- 
non, in  the  days  when  it  was  a  prize,  more  than  once 
suffered  capture,  and  at  present  it  is  crumbling 
inch  by  inch.  It  is  apparent,  however,  I  believe, 
that  these  inches  encroach  little  upon  acres  of 


CHENONCEAUX  69 

masonry.)  It  was  in  the  castle  that  Jeanne  Dare 
had  her  first  interview  with  Charles  VII.,  and  it  is 
in  the  town  that  Frangois  Rabelais  is  supposed  to 
have  been  born.  To  the  castle,  moreover,  the 
.  lover  of  the  picturesque  is  earnestly  recommended 
to  direct  his  steps.  But  one  always  misses  some- 
thing, and  I  would  rather  have  missed  Chinon 
than  Chenonceaux.  Fortunate  exceedingly  were 
the  few  hours  we  passed  on  the  spot  on  which  we 
missed  nothing. 

"In  1747,"  says  Jean-Jacques  Rousseau  in  his 
"  Confessions,"  "  we  went  to  spend  the  autumn  in 
Touraine,  at  the  Chateau  of  Chenonceaux,  a  royal 
residence  upon  the  Cher,  built  by  Henry  II.  for 
Diana  of  Poitiers,  whose  initials  are  still  to  be  seen 
there,  and  now  in  possession  of  M.  Dupin,  the 
farmer-general.  We  amused  ourselves  greatly  at 
this  fine  place ;  the  living  was  of  the  best,  and  I 
became  as  fat  as  a  monk.  We  made  a  great  deal 
of  music  and  acted  comedies." 

This  is  the  only  description  that  Rousseau  gives 
of  one  of  the  most  romantic  houses  in  France  and 
of  an  episode  that  must  have  counted  as  one  of  the 
,  most  agreeable  in  his  uncomfortable  career.  The 
eighteenth  century  contented  itself  with  general 
epithets  ;  and  when  Jean- Jacques  has  said  that 
Chenonceaux  was  a  "  beau  lieu,"  he  thinks  himself 
absolved  from  further  characterization.     We  later 


70    A   LITTLE  TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

sons  of  time  have,  both  for  our  pleasure  and  our 
pain,  invented  the  fashion  of  special  terms,  and  I 
am  afraid  that  even  common  decency  obliges  me 
to  pay  some  larger  tribute  than  this  to  the  archi- 
tectural gem  of  Touraine.  Fortunately  I  can  dis- 
charge my  debt  with  gratitude.  In  going  from 
Tours  you  leave  the  valley  of  the  Loire  and  enter 
that  of  the  Cher,  and  at  the  end  of  about  an  hour 
you  see  the  turrets  of  the  castle  on  your  right, 
among  the  trees,  down  in  the  meadows,  beside  the 
quiet  little  river.  The  station  and  the  village  are 
about  ten  minutes'  walk  from  the  chateau,  and  the 
village  contains  a  very  tidy  inn,  where,  if  you  are 
not  in  too  great  a  hurry  to  commune  with  the 
shades  of  the  royal  favorite  and  the  jealous  queen, 
you  will  perhaps  stop  and  order  a  dinner  to  be 
ready  for  you  in  the  evening.  A  straight,  tall 
avenue  leads  to  the  grounds  of  the  castle ;  what 
I  owe  to  exactitude  compels  me  to  add  that  it 
is  crossed  by  the  railway-line.  The  place  is  so 
arranged,  however,  that  the  chateau  need  know 
nothing  of  passing  trains  —  which  pass,  indeed, 
though  the  grounds  are  not  large,  at  a  very  suffi- 
cient distance.  I  may  add  that  the  trains  through- 
out this  part  of  France  have  a  noiseless,  desultory, 
dawdling,  almost  stationary  quality,  which  makes 
them  less  of  an  offense  than  usual.  It  was  a  Sun- 
day afternoon,  and  the  light  was  yellow  save  under 


•  .      •• 


CHENONCEAUX  71 

the  trees  of  the  avenue,  where,  in  spite  of  the 
waning  of  September,  it  was  duskily  green.  Three 
or  four  peasants,  in  festal  attire,  were  strolling 
about.  On  a  bench  at  the  beginning  of  the-avenue 
sat  a  man  with  two  women.  As  I  advanced  with 
my  companions  he  rose,  after  a  sudden  stare,  and 
approached  me  with  a  smile  in  which  (to  be  John- 
sonian for  a  moment)  certitude  was  mitigated  by 
modesty  and  eagerness  was  embellished  with  re- 
spect. He  came  toward  me  with  a  salutation  that 
I  had  seen  before,  and  I  am  happy  to  say  that  after 
an  instant  I  ceased  to  be  guilty  of  the  brutality  of 
not  knowing  where.  There  was  only  one  place  in 
the  world  where  people  smile  like  that,  only  one 
place  where  the  art  of  salutation  has  that  perfect 
grace.  This  excellent  creature  used  to  crook  his 
arm,  in  Venice,  when  I  stepped  into  my  gondola ; 
and  I  now  laid  my  hand  on  that  member  with  the 
familiarity  of  glad  recognition ;  for  it  was  only 
surprise  that  had  kept  me  even  for  a  moment  from 
accepting  the  genial  Francesco  as  an  ornament  of 
the  landscape  of  Touraine.  What  on  earth  —  the 
phrase  is  the  right  one  —  was  a  Venetian  gondolier 
doing  at  Chenonceaux .?  He  had  been  brought 
from  Venice,  gondola  and  all,  by  the  mistress  of 
the  charming  house,  to  paddle  about  on  the  Cher. 
Our  meeting  was  affectionate,  though  there  was  a 
kind  of  violence  in  seeing  him  so  far  from  home. 


72     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

He  was  too  well  dressed,  too  well  fed ;  he  had 
grown  stout,  and  his  nose  had  the  tinge  of  good 
claret.  He  remarked  that  the  life  of  the  house- 
hold to  which  he  had  the  honor  to  belong  was  that 
of  a  casa  rcgia ;  which  must  have  been  a  great 
change  for  poor  Checco,  whose  habits  in  Venice 
were  not  regal.  However,  he  was  the  sympathetic 
Checco  still ;  and  for  five  minutes  after  I  left  him 
I  thought  less  about  the  little  pleasure-house  by 
the  Cher  than  about  the  palaces  of  the  Adriatic. 
But  attention  was  not  long  in  coming  round  to 
the  charming  structure  that  presently  rose  before 
us.  The  pale  yellow  front  of  the  chateau,  the 
small  scale  of  which  is  at  first  a  surprise,  rises 
beyond  a  considerable  court,  at  the  entrance  of 
which  a  massive  and  detached  round  tower,  with  a 
turret  on  its  brow  (a  relic  of  the  building  that  pre- 
ceded the  actual  villa),  appears  to  keep  guard. 
This  court  is  not  inclosed  —  or  is  inclosed  at  least 
only  by  the  gardens,  portions  of  which  are  at 
present  in  process  of  radical  readjustment.  There- 
fore, though  Chenonceaux  has  no  great  height,  its 
delicate  facade  stands  up  boldly  enough.  This 
fa9ade,  one  of  the  most  finished  things  in  Touraine, 
consists  of  two  stories,  surmounted  by  an  attic 
which,  as  so  often  in  the  buildings  of  the  French 
Renaissance,  is  the  richest  part  of  the  house.  The 
high-pitched  roof  contains  three  windows  of  beau- 


CHENONCEAUX  73 

tiful  design,  covered  with  embroidered  caps  and 
flowering  into  crocketed  spires.  The  window 
above  the  door  is  deeply  niched ;  it  opens  upon  a 
balcony  made  in  the  form  of  a  double  pulpit  —  one 
of  the  most  charming  features  of  the  front. 
Chenonceaux  is  not  large,  as  I  say,  but  into  its 
delicate  compass  is  packed  a  great  deal  of  history, 
—  history  which  differs  from  that  of  Amboise  and 
Blois  in  being  of  the  private  and  sentimental  kind. 
The  echoes  of  the  place,  faint  and  far  as  they  are 
to-day,  are  not  political,  but  personal.  Chenon- 
ceaux dates,  as  a  residence,  from  the  year  15 15, 
when  the  shrewd  Thomas  Bohier,  a  public  func- 
tionary who  had  grown  rich  in  handling  the 
finances  of  Normandy  and  had  acquired  the  estate 
from  a  family  which,  after  giving  it  many  feudal 
lords,  had  fallen  into  poverty,  erected  the  present 
structure  on  the  foundations  of  an  old  mill.  The 
design  is  attributed,  with  I  know  not  what  justice, 
to  Pierre  Nepveu,  alias  Trinqueau,  the  audacious 
architect  of  Chambord.  On  the  death  of  Bohier 
the  house  passed  to  his  son,  who,  however,  was 
forced,  under  cruel  pressure,  to  surrender  it  to  the 
Crown  in  compensation  for  a  so-called  deficit  in  the 
official  accounts  of  this  rash  parent  and  prede- 
•cessor.  Francis  I.  held  the  place  till  his  death ; 
but  Henry  II.,  on  ascending  the  throne,  presented 
it  out  of  hand  to  that  mature  charmer,  the  admired 


74    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

of  two  generations,  Diana  of  Poitiers.  Diana 
enjoyed  it  till  the  death  of  her  protector  ;  but  when 
this  event  occurred  the  widow  of  the  monarch,  who 
had  been  obliged  to  submit  in  silence,  for  years,  to 
the  ascendency  of  a  rival,  took  the  most  pardon- 
able of  all  the  revenges  with  which  the  name  of 
Catherine  de'  Medici  is  associated,  and  turned  her 
out-of-doors.  Diana  was  not  in  want  of  refuges, 
and  Catherine  went  through  the  form  of  giving 
her  Chaumont  in  exchange  ;  but  there  was  only 
one  Chenonceaux.  Catherine  devoted  herself  to 
making  the  place  more  completely  unique.  The 
feature  that  renders  it  sole  of  its  kind  is  not  ap- 
preciated till  you  wander  round  to  either  side  of 
the  house.  If  a  certain  springing  lightness  is  the 
characteristic  of  Chenonceaux,  if  it  bears  in  every 
line  the  aspect  of  a  place  of  recreation  —  a  place 
intended  for  delicate,  chosen  pleasures  —  nothing 
can  confirm  this  expression  better  than  the  strange, 
unexpected  movement  with  which,  from  behind, 
it  carries  itself  across  the  river.  The  earlier 
building  stands  in  the  water ;  it  had  inherited  the 
foundations  of  the  mill  destroyed  by  Thomas 
Bohier.  The  first  step  therefore  had  been  taken 
upon  solid  piles  of  masonry ;  and  the  ingenious 
Catherine  —  she  was  a  raffiude  —  simply  proceeded 
to  take  the  others.  She  continued  the  piles  to 
the  opposite  bank  of  the  Cher,  and  over  them  she 


CHENONCEAUX  75 

threw  a  long,  straight  gallery  of  two  tiers.  This 
part  of  the  chateau,  which  mainly  resembles  a 
house  built  upon  a  bridge  and  occupying  its  entire 
length,  is  of  course  the  great  curiosity  of  Chenon- 
ceaux.  It  forms  on  each  floor  a  charming  corridor, 
which,  within,  is  illuminated  from  either  side  by 
the  flickering  river-light.  The  architecture  of 
these  galleries,  seen  from  without,  is  less  elegant 
than  that  of  the  main  building,  but  the  aspect  of 
the  whole  thing  is  delightful.  I  have  spoken 
of  Chenonceaux  as  a  "villa,"  using  the  word  ad- 
visedly, for  the  place  is  neither  a  castle  nor  a 
palace.  It  is  a  very  exceptional  villa,  but  it  has 
the  villa  quality  —  the  look  of  being  intended  for 
life  in  common.  This  look  is  not  at  all  contra* 
dieted  by  the  wing  across  the  Cher,  which  only 
suggests  indoor  perspectives  and  intimate  plea- 
sures, —  walks  in  pairs  on  rainy  days ;  games  and 
dances  on  autumn  nights  ;  together  with  as  much 
as  may  be  of  moonlighted  dialogue  (or  silence)  in 
the  course  of  evenings  more  genial  still,  in  the 
well-marked  recesses  of  windows. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  such  things  took  place 
there  in  the  last  century,  during  the  kindly  reign 
of  Monsieur  and  Madame  Dupin.  This  period 
presents  itself  as  the  happiest  in  the  annals  of 
Chenonceaux.  I  know  not  what  festive  train  the 
great  Diana  may  have  led,  and  my  imagination,  I 


^6    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

am  afraid,  is  only  feebly  kindled  by  the  records  of 
the  luxurious  pastimes  organized  on  the  banks  of 
the  Cher  by  that  terrible  daughter  of  the  Medici, 
whose  appreciation  of  the  good  things  of  life  was 
perfectly  consistent  with  a  failure  to  perceive  why 
others  should  live  to  enjoy  them.  The  best  soci- 
ety that  ever  assembled  there  was  collected  at 
Chenonceaux  during  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  This  was  surely,  in  France  at  least,  the 
age  of  good  society,  the  period  when  the  "  right 
people"  made  every  haste  to  be  born  in  time. 
Such  people  must  of  course  have  belonged  to  the 
fortunate  few  —  not  to  the  miserable  many  ;  for 
if  a  society  be  large  enough  to  be  good,  it  must 
also  be  small  enough.  The  sixty  years  that  pre- 
ceded the  Revolution  were  the  golden  age  of  fire- 
side talk  and  of  those  amenities  that  proceed  from 
the  presence  of  women  in  whom  the  social  art  is 
both  instinctive  and  acquired.  The  women  of  that 
period  were,  above  all,  good  company ;  the  fact  is 
attested  in  a  thousand  documents.  Chenonceaux 
offered  a  perfect  setting  to  free  conversation  ;  and 
infinite  joyous  discourse  must  have  mingled  with 
the  liquid  murmur  of  the  Cher.  Claude  Dupin 
was  not  only  a  great  man  of  business,  but  a  man 
of  honor  and  a  patron  of  knowledge  ;  and  his 
wife  was  gracious,  clever,  and  wise.  They  had 
acquired  this  famous  property  by  purchase  (from 


CHENONCEAUX  -jy 

one  of  the  Bourbons,  as  Chenonceaux,  for  two 
centuries  after  the  death  of  Catherine  de'  Medici, 
remained  constantly  in  princely  hands),  and  it  was 
transmitted  to  their  son,  Dupin  de  Francueil,  grand- 
father of  Madame  George  Sand.  This  lady,  in 
her  Correspondence,  lately  published,  describes  a 
visit  that  she  paid  more  than  thirty  years  ago  to 
those  members  of  her  family  who  were  still  in 
possession.  The  owner  of  Chenonceaux  to-day  ^ 
is  the  daughter  of  an  Englishman  naturalized  in 
France.  But  I  have  wandered  far  from  my  story, 
which  is  simply  a  sketch  of  the  surface  of  the 
place.  Seen  obliquely,  from  either  side,  in  com- 
bination with  its  bridge  and  gallery,  the  structure 
is  singular  and  fantastic,  a  striking  example  of  a 
willful  and  capricious  conception.  Unfortunately 
all  caprices  are  not  so  graceful  and  successful,  and 
I  grudge  the  honor  of  this  one  to  the  false  and 
blood-polluted  Catherine.  (To  be  exact,  I  believe 
the  arches  of  the  bridge  were  laid  by  the  elderly 
Diana.  It  was  Catherine,  however,  who  completed 
the  monument.)  Within,  the  house  has  been,  as 
usual,  restored.  The  staircases  and  ceilings,  in 
all  the  old  royal  residences  of  this  part  of  France, 
are  the  parts  that  have  suffered  least ;  many  of 
them  have  still  much  of  the  life  of  the  old  time 
about  them.  Some  of  the  chambers  of  Chenon- 
1 1884. 


78     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

ceaiix,  however,  encumbered  as  they  are  with 
modern  detail,  derive  a  sufficiently  haunted  and 
suggestive  look  from  the  deep  setting  of  their 
beautiful  windows,  which  thickens  the  shadows 
and  makes  dark  corners.  There  is  a  charming 
little  Gothic  chapel,  with  its  apse  hanging  over  the 
water,  fastened  to  the  left  flank  of  the  house. 
Some  of  the  upper  balconies,  which  look  along  the 
outer  face  of  the  gallery  and  either  up  or  down 
the  river,  are  delightful  protected  nooks.  We 
walked  through  the  lower  gallery  to  the  other 
bank  of  the  Cher ;  this  fine  apartment  appeared 
to  be  for  the  moment  a  purgatory  of  ancient  furni- 
ture. It  terminates  rather  abruptly ;  it  simply 
stops,  with  a  blank  wall.  There  ought,  of  course, 
to  have  been  a  pavilion  here,  though  I  prefer  very 
much  the  old  defect  to  any  modern  remedy.  The 
wall  is  not  so  blank,  however,  but  that  it  contains 
a  door  which  opens  on  a  rusty  drawbridge.  This 
drawbridge  traverses  the  small  gap  which  divides 
the  end  of  the  gallery  from  the  bank  of  the  stream. 
The  house,  therefore,  does  not  literally  rest  on 
opposite  edges  of  the  Cher,  but  rests  on  one  and 
just  fails  to  rest  on  the  other.  The  pavilion  would 
have  made  that  up  ;  but  after  a  moment  we  ceased 
to  miss  this  imaginary  feature.  We  passed  the 
little  drawbridge,  and  wandered  awhile  beside  the 
river.      From   this   opposite   bank    the   mass   of 


CHENONCEAUX  79 

the  chateau  looked  more  charming  than  ever  ;  and 
the  little  peaceful,  lazy  Cher,  where  two  or  three 
men  were  fishing  in  the  eventide,  flowed  under  the 
clear  arches  and  between  the  solid  pedestals  of 
the  part  that  spanned  it,  with  the  softest,  vaguest 
light  on  its  bosom.  This  was  the  right  per- 
spective ;  we  were  looking  across  the  river  of  time. 
The  whole  scene  was  deliciously  mild.  The  moon 
came  up  ;  we  passed  back  through  the  gallery  and 
strolled  about  a  little  longer  in  the  gardens.  It 
was  very  still.  I  met  my  old  gondolier  in  the 
twilight.  He  showed  me  his  gondola,  but  I  hated, 
somehow,  to  see  it  there.  I  don't  like,  as  the 
French  say,  to  meler  les  genres.  A  gondola  in  a 
little  flat  French  river }  The  image  was  not  less 
irritating,  if  less  injurious,  than  the  spectacle  of  a 
steamer  in  the  Grand  Canal,  which  had  driven  me 
away  from  Venice  a  year  and  a  half  before.  We 
took  our  way  back  to  the  Bon  Laboureur,  and 
waited  in  the  little  inn-parlor  for  a  late  train  to 
Tours.  We  were  not  impatient,  for  we  had  an 
excellent  dinner  to  occupy  us  ;  and  even  after  we 
had  dined  we  were  still  content  to  sit  awhile  and 
exchange  remarks  upon  the  superior  civilization  of 
France.  Where  else,  at  a  village  inn,  should  we 
have  fared  so  well }  Where  else  should  we  have 
sat  down  to  our  refreshment  without  condescen- 
sion ?     There  were  a  couple  of  countries  in  which 


8o     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

it  would  not  have  been  happy  for  us  to  arrive 
hungry,  on  a  Sunday  evening,  at  so  modest  an 
hostelry.  At  the  little  inn  at  Chenonceaux  the 
cuisine  was  not  only  excellent,  but  the  service  was 
graceful.  We  were  waited  on  by  mademoiselle 
and  her  mamma ;  it  was  so  that  mademoiselle  al- 
luded to  the  elder  lady  as  she  uncorked  for  us  a 
bottle  of  Vouvray  mousseux.  We  were  very  com- 
fortable, very  genial ;  we  even  went  so  far  as  to 
say  to  each  other  that  Vouvray  mousseux  was  a 
delightful  wine.  From  this  opinion  indeed  one  of 
our  trio  differed ;  but  this  member  of  the  party 
had  already  exposed  herself  to  the  charge  of  being 
too  fastidious,  by  declining  to  descend  from  the 
carriage  at  Chaumont  and  take  that  back-stairs 
view  of  the  castle. 


VIII 


AZAY-LE-RIDEAU 


WITHOUT  fastidiousness  it  was  fair  to  de- 
clare, on  the  other  hand,  that  the  little 
inn  at  Azay-le-Rideau  was  very  bad.  It  was  ter- 
ribly dirty,  and  it  was  in  charge  of  a  fat  megere 
whom  the  appearance  of  four  trustful  travelers 
—  we  were  four,  with  an  illustrious  fourth,  on  that 
occasion  —  roused  apparently  to  fury.  I  attached 
great  importance  to  this  incongruous  hostess,  for 
she  uttered  the  only  uncivil  words  I  heard  spoken 
(in  connection  with  any  business  of  my  own)  dur- 
ing a  tour  of  some  six  weeks  in  France.  Break- 
fast not  at  Azay-le-Rideau  therefore,  too  trustful 
traveler ;  or  if  you  do   so,  be  either  very  meek  or 


82     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

very  bold.  Breakfast  not,  save  under  stress  of 
circumstance ;  but  let  no  circumstance  whatever 
prevent  your  going  to  see  the  great  house  of  the 
place,  which  is  a  fair  rival  to  Chenonceaux.  The 
village  lies  close  to  the  gates,  though  after  you 
pass  these  gates  you  leave  it  well  behind.  A  little 
avenue,  as  at  Chenonceaux,  leads  to  the  castle, 
making  a  pretty  vista  as  you  approach  the  sculp- 
tured doorway.  Azay  is  a  most  perfect  and  beau- 
tiful thing ;  I  should  place  it  third  in  any  list  of 
the  great  houses  of  this  part  of  France  in  which 
these  houses  should  be  ranked  according  to  charm. 
For  beauty  of  detail  it  comes  after  Blois  and  Che- 
nonceaux, but  it  comes  before  Amboise  and  Cham- 
bord.  On  the  other  hand,  of  course,  it  is  inferior 
in  majesty  to  either  of  these  vast  structures.  Like 
Chenonceaux  it  is  a  watery  place,  though  it  is 
more  meagrely  moated  than  the  small  chateau  on 
the  Cher.  It  consists  of  a  large  square  corps  dc 
logis,  with  a  round  tower  at  each  angle,  rising  out 
of  a  somewhat  too  slumberous  pond.  The  water 
—  the  water  of  the  Indre  —  surrounds  it,  but  it  is 
only  on  one  side  that  it  bathes  its  feet  in  the  moat. 
On  one  of  the  others  stretches  a  little  terrace, 
treated  as  a  garden,  and  in  front  prevails  a  wide 
court  formed  by  a  wing  which,  on  the  right,  comes 
forward.  This  front,  covered  with  sculptures,  is 
of  the  richest,  stateliest  effect.     The  court  is  ap- 


AZAY-LE-RIDEAU 


AZAY-LE-RIDEAU  83 

proached  by  a  bridge  over  the  pond,  and  the  house 
would  reflect  itself  in  this  wealth  of  water  if  the 
water  were  a  trifle  less  opaque.  But  there  is  a 
certain  stagnation  —  it  affects  more  senses  than 
one  —  about  the  picturesque  pools  of  Azay.  On 
the  hither  side  of  the  bridge  is  a  garden  over- 
'shadowed  by  fine  old  sycamores  —  a  garden  shut 
in  by  greenhouses  and  by  a  fine  last-century  gate- 
way flanked  with  twin  lodges.  Beyond  the  chateau 
and  the  standing  waters  behind  it  is  a  so-called 
pare,  which,  however,  it  must  be  confessed,  has 
little  of  park-like  beauty.  The  old  houses  —  a 
large  number  —  remain  in  France;  but  the  old 
timber  does  not  remain,  and  the  denuded  aspect 
of  the  few  acres  that  surround  the  chateaux  of 
Touraine  is  pitiful  to  the  traveler  who  has  learned 
to  take  the  measure  of  such  things  from  the  coun- 
try of  "  stately  homes."  The  garden-ground  of  the 
lordly  Chaumont  is  that  of  an  English  suburban 
villa  ;  and  in  that  and  in  other  places  there  is  little 
suggestion,  in  the  untended  aspect  of  walk  and 
lawns,  of  the  gardener  the  British  Islands  know. 
The  manor  as  we  see  it  dates  from  the  early  part 
of  the  sixteenth  century ;  and  the  industrious 
Abbe  Chev^alier,  in  his  very  entertaining  though 
slightly  rose-colored  book  on  Touraine,^  speaks  of 
it  as  "  perhaps  the  purest  expression  of  the  belle 

1  Promenades  Pittoresqties  en  Touraine,  Tours,  1869. 


84     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

Renaissance  franqoise!'  *'  Its  height,"  he  goes 
on,  "is  divided  between  two  stories,  terminating 
under  the  roof  in  a  projecting  entablature  which 
imitates  a  row  of  machicolations.  Carven  chim- 
neys and  tall  dormer  windows,  covered  with  im- 
agery, rise  from  the  roofs ;  turrets  on  brackets,  of 
elegant  shape,  hang  with  the  greatest  lightness 
from  the  angles  of  the  building.  The  soberness 
of  the  main  lines,  the  harmony  of  the  empty 
spaces  and  those  that  are  filled  out,  the  promi- 
nence of  the  crowning  parts,  the  delicacy  of  all 
the  details,  constitute  an  enchanting  whole."  And 
then  the  Abbe  speaks  of  the  admirable  staircase 
which  adorns  the  north  front  and  which,  with  its 
extension  inside,  constitutes  the  principal  treasure 
of  Azay.  The  staircase  passes  beneath  one  of  the 
richest  of  porticoes,  —  a  portico  over  which  a  monu- 
mental salamander  indulges  in  the  most  decorative 
contortions.  The  sculptured  vaults  of  stone  which 
cover  the  windings  of  the  staircase  within,  the 
fruits,  flowers,  ciphers,  heraldic  signs,  are  of  the 
noblest  effect.  The  interior  of  the  chateau  is  rich, 
comfortable,  extremely  modern ;  but  it  makes  no 
picture  that  compares  with  its  external  face,  about 
which,  with  its  charming  proportions,  its  profuse 
yet  not  extravagant  sculpture,  there  is  something 
very  tranquil  and  pure.  I  took  a  particular  fancy 
to  the  roof,  high,  steep,  old,  with  its  slope  of  bluish 


AZAY-LE-RIDEAU  85 

slate,  and  the  way  the  weather-worn  chimneys 
seemed  to  grow  out  of  it  —  living  things  in  a  deep 
soil.  The  single  defect  of  the  house  is  the  blank- 
ness  and  bareness  of  its  walls,  which  have  none  of 
that  delicate  parasitic  deposit  that  agrees  so  well 
—  to  the  eye  —  with  the  surface  of  old  dwellings. 
It  is  true  that  this  bareness  results  in  a  kind  of 
silvery  whiteness  of  complexion  which  carries  out 
the  tone  of  the  quiet  pools  aiid  even  that  of  the 
scanty  and  shadeless  park. 


IX 


LANGEAIS 


I  HARDLY  know  what  to  say  about  the  tone 
of  Langeais,  which,  though  I  have  left  it  to 
the  end  of  my  sketch,  formed  the  objective  point 
of  the  first  excursion  I  made  from  Tours.  Langeais 
is  rather  dark  and  gray  ;  it  is  perhaps  the  simplest 
and  most  severe  of  all  the  castles  of  the  Loire.  I 
don't  know  why  I  should  have  gone  to  see  it  be- 
fore any  other,  unless  it  be  because  I  remembered 
that  Duchesse  de  Langeais  who  figures  in  several 
of  Balzac's  novels,  and  found  this  association  very 
potent.  The  Duchesse  de  Langeais  is  a  some- 
what transparent  fiction  ;  but  the  castle  from 
which  Balzac  borrowed  the  title  of  his  heroine  is 


LANGEAIS  ^7 

an  extremely  solid  fact.  My  doubt  just  above  as 
to  whether  I  should  pronounce  it  exceptionally 
gray  came  from  my  having  seen  it  under  a  sky 
which  made  most  things  look  dark.  I  have,  how- 
ever, a  very  kindly  memory  of  that  moist  and 
melancholy  afternoon,  which  was  much  more  au- 
tumnal than  many  of  the  days  that  followed  it. 
Langeais  lies  down  the  Loire,  near  the  river,  on 
the  opposite  side  from  Tours,  and  to  go  to  it  you 
will  spend  half  an  hour  in  the  train.  You  pass  on 
the  way  the  Chateau  de  Luynes,  which,  with  its 
round  towers  catching  the  afternoon  light,  looks 
uncommonly  well  on  a  hill  at  a  distance  ;  you 
pass  also  the  ruins  of  the  castle  of  Cinq-Mars,  the 
ancestral  dwelling  of  the  young  favorite  of  Louis 
XIII.,  the  victim  of  Richelieu,  the  hero  of  Alfred 
de  Vigny's  novel,  which  is  usually  recommended 
to  young  ladies  engaged  in  the  study  of  French. 
Langeais  is  very  imposing  and  decidedly  sombre  ; 
it  marks  the  transition  from  the  architecture  of 
defense  to  that  of  elegance.  It  rises,  massive  and 
perpendicular,  out  of  the  centre  of  the  village  to 
which  it  gives  its  name  and  which  it  entirely  dom- 
inates ;  so  that  as  you  stand  before  it  in  the 
crooked  and  empty  street  there  is  no  resource  for 
you  but  to  stare  up  at  its  heavy  overhanging  cor- 
nice and  at  the  huge  towers  surmounted  with 
extinguishers  of  slate.     If  you  follow  this  street 


88     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

to  the  end,  however,  you  encounter  in  abundance 
the  usual  embelHshments  of  a  French  village  : 
little  ponds  or  tanks,  with  women  on  their  knees 
on  the  brink,  pounding  and  thumping  a  lump  of 
saturated  linen  ;  brown  old  crones,  the  tone  of 
whose  facial  hide  makes  their  nightcaps  (worn  by 
day)  look  dazzling ;  little  alleys  perforating  the 
thickness  of  a  row  of  cottages  and  showing  you 
behind,  as  a  glimpse,  the  vividness  of  a  green  gar- 
den. In  the  rear  of  the  castle  rises  a  hill,  which 
must  formerly  have  been  occupied  by  some  of  its 
appurtenances,  and  which  indeed  is  still  partly 
inclosed  within  its  court.  You  may  walk  round 
this  eminence,  which,  with  the  small  houses  of  the 
village  at  its  base,  shuts  in  the  castle  from  behind. 
The  inclosure  is  not  defiantly  guarded,  however  ; 
for  a  small,  rough  path,  which  you  presently 
reach,  leads  up  to  an  open  gate.  This  gate  ad- 
mits you  to  a  vague  and  rather  limited  J^arc,  which 
covers  the  crest  of  the  hill,  and  through  which  you 
may  walk  into  the  gardens  of  the  castle.  These 
gardens,  of  small  extent,  confront  the  dark  walls 
with  their  brilliant  parterres,  and,  covering  the 
gradual  slope  of  the  hill,  form,  as  it  were,  the 
fourth  side  of  the  court.  This  is  the  stateliest 
view  of  the  structure,  which  looks  to  you  suffi- 
ciently grim  and  gray  as,  after  asking  leave  of  a 
neat  young  woman  who  sallies  out  to  learn  your 


LANULAIS 


LANGEAIS  89 

errand,  you  sit  there  on  a  garden  bench  and  take 
the  measure  of  the  three  tall  towers  attached  to 
this  inner  front  and  forming  severally  the  cage 
of  a  staircase.  The  huge  bracketed  cornice  (one 
of  the  features  of  Langeais),  which  is  merely 
ornamental,  as  it  is  not  machicolated,  though  it 
looks  so,  is  continued  on  the  inner  face  as  well. 
The  whole  thing  has  a  fine  feudal  air,  though  it 
was  erected  on  the  ruins  of  feudalism. 

The  main  event  in  the  history  of  the  castle  is 
the  marriage  of  Anne  of  Brittany  to  her  first  hus- 
band, Charles  VIII.,  which  took  place  in  its  great 
hall  in  1491.  Into  this  great  hall  we  were  intro- 
duced by  the  neat  young  woman  —  into  this  great 
hall  and  into  sundry  other  halls,  winding  stair- 
cases, galleries,  chambers.  Thefcicerone  of  Lan- 
geais is  in  too  great  a  hurry  ;  the  fact  is  pointed 
out  in  the  excellent  Guide-Joanne.  This  ill-dis- 
simulated vice,  however,  is  to  be  observed,  in  the 
country  of  the  Loire,  in  every  one  who  carries 
a  key.  It  is  true  that  at  Langeais  there  is  no 
great  occasion  to  indulge  in  the  tourist's  weakness 
of  dawdling ;  for  the  apartments,  though  they 
contain  many  curious  odds  and  ends  of  antiquity, 
are  not  of  first-rate  interest.  They  are  cold  and 
musty  indeed,  with  that  touching  smell  of  old  fur- 
niture, as  all  apartments  should  be  through  which 
the  insatiate  American  wanders  in  the  rear  of  a 
bored  domestic,  pausing  to  stare  at  a  faded  tapes- 


90     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    P^RANCE 

try  or  to  read  the  name  on  the  frame  of  some  sim- 
pering portrait. 

To  return  to  Tours  my  companion  and  I  had 
counted  on  a  train  which  (as  is  not  uncommon  in 
France)  existed  only  in  the  "  Indicateur  des 
Chemins  de  Per ;  "  and  instead  of  waiting  for 
another  we  engaged  a  vehicle  to  take  us  home. 
A  sorry  carriole  or  patacJie  it  proved  to  be,  with 
the  accessories  of  a  lumbering  white  mare  and  a 
little  wizened,  ancient  peasant,  who  had  put  on,  in 
honor  of  the  occasion,  a  new  blouse  of  extraordi- 
nary stiffness  and  blueness.  We  hired  the  trap  of 
an  energetic  woman  who  put  it  '*to"  with  her 
own  hands ;  women  in  Touraine  and  the  Blesois 
appearing  to  have  the  best  of  it  in  the  business  of 
letting  vehicles,  as  well  as  in  many  other  indus- 
tries. There  is,  in  fact,  no  branch  of  human 
activity  in  which  one  is  not  liable,  in  France,  to 
find  a  woman  engaged.  Women,  indeed,  are  not 
priests ;  but  priests  are,  more  or  less,  women. 
They  are  not  in  the  army,  it  may  be  said ;  but 
then  they  are  the  army.  They  are  very  formid- 
able. In  France  one  must  count  with  the  women. 
The  drive  back  from  Langeais  to  Tours  was  long, 
slow,  cold  ;  we  had  an  occasional  spatter  of  rain. 
But  the  road  passes  most  of  the  way  close  to  the 
Loire,  and  there  was  something  in  our  jog  trot 
through  the  darkening  land,  beside  the  flowing 
river,  which  it  was  very  possible  to  enjoy. 


ss#f® 


mm  4  ^iw-&^ 


f   1  /  WW?  fi^l^^'!^Vf?^m 
if.,  J    i/|^l^W--'.l^'~^^^3iif'^™* 


X 


LOCHES 

THE  consequence  of  my  leaving  to  the  last 
.  my  little  mention  of  Loches  is  that  space 
and  opportunity  fail  me  ;  and  yet  a  brief  and  hur- 
ried account  of  that  extraordinary  spot  would  after 
all.  be  in  best  agreement  with  my  visit.  We 
snatched  a  fearful  joy,  my  companion  and  I,  the 
afternoon  we  took  the  train  for  Loches.  The 
weather  this  time  had  been  terribly  against  us  ; 
again  and  again  a  day  that  promised  fair  became 
hopelessly  foul  after  lunch.  At  last  we  deter- 
mined that  if  we  could  not  make  this  excursion  in 
the  sunshine  we  would  make  it  with  the  aid  of  our 


92     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

umbrellas.  We  grasped  them  firmly  and  started 
for  the  station,  where  we  were  detained  an  uncon- 
scionable  time  by  the  evolutions,  outside,  of  certain 
trains  laden  with  liberated  (and  exhilarated)  con- 
scripts, who,  their  term  of  service  ended,  were 
about  to  be  restored  to  civil  life.  The  trains  in 
Touraine  are  provoking  ;  they  serve  as  little  as 
possible  for  excursions.  If  they  convey  you  one 
way  at  the  right  hour,  it  is  on  the  condition  of 
bringing  you  back  at  the  wrong  ;  they  eith'er  allow 
you  far  too  little  time  to  examine  the  castle  or  the 
ruin,  or  they  leave  you  planted  in  front  of  it  for 
periods  that  outlast  curiosity.  They  are  perverse, 
capricious,  exasperating.  It  was  a  question  of  our 
having  but  an  hour  or  two  at  Loches,  and  we 
could  ill  afford  to  sacrifice  to  accidents.  One  of 
the  accidents,  however,  was  that  the  rain  stopped 
before  we  got  there,  leaving  behind  it  a  moist 
mildness  of  temperature  and  a  cool  and  lowering 
sky  which  were  in  perfect  agreement  with  the 
gray  old  city.  Loches  is  certainly  one  of  the 
greatest  impressions  of  the  traveler  in  central 
France  —  the  largest  cluster  of  curious  things  that 
presents  itself  to  his  sight.  It  rises  above  the 
valley  of  the  Indre,  the  charming  stream  set  in 
meadows  and  sedges,  which  wanders  through  the 
province  of  Berry  and  through  many  of  the  novels 
of  Madame  George  Sand  ;  lifting  from  the  summit 


LOCHES  93 

of  a  hill,  which  it  covers  to  the  base,  a  confusion 
of  terraces,  ramparts,  towers,  and  spires.  Having 
but  little  time,  as  I  say,  we  scaled  the  hill  amain 
and  wandered  briskly  through  this  labyrinth  of 
antiquities.  The  rain  had  decidedly  stopped  and, 
save  that  we  had  our  train  on  our  minds,  we  saw 
Loches  to  the  best  advantage.  We  enjoyed  that 
sensation  with  which  the  conscientious  tourist  is 
— or  ought  to  be — well  acquainted  and  for  which, 
at  any  rate,  he  has  a  formula  in  his  rough-and- 
ready  language.  We  "experienced,"  as  they  say, 
(most  irregular  of  verbs !)  an  "  agreeable  disap- 
pointment." We  were  surprised  and  delighted  ; 
we  had  for  some  reason  suspected  that  Loches 
was  scarce  good. 

I  hardly  know  what  is  best  there  :  the  strange 
and  impressive  little  collegial  church,  with  its 
romanesque  atrium  or  narthex,  its  doorways  cov- 
ered with  primitive  sculpture  of  the  richest  kind, 
its  treasure  of  a  so-called  pagan  altar  embossed 
with  fighting  warriors,  its  three  pyramidal  domes, 
so  unexpected,  so  sinister,  which  I  have  not  met 
elsewhere  in  church  architecture ;  or  the  huge 
square  keep  of  the  eleventh  century,  —  the  most 
cliff-like  tower  I  remember,  whose  immeasurable 
thickness  I  did  not  penetrate  ;  or  the  subterranean 
mysteries  of  two  other  less  striking  but  not  less 
historic  dungeons,  into  which  a  terribly  imperative 


94     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

little  cicerone  introduced  us,  with  the  aid  of  down- 
ward ladders,  ropes,  torches,  warnings,  extended 
hands,  and  many  fearful  anecdotes  —  all  in  imper- 
vious darkness.  These  horrible  prisons  of  Loches, 
at  an  incredible  distance  below  daylight,  enlivened 
the  consciousness  of  Louis  XL,  and  were  for  the 
most  part,  I  believe,  constructed  by  him.  One  of 
the  towers  of  the  castle  is  garnished  with  the 
hooks  or  supports  of  the  celebrated  iron  cage  in 
which  he  confined  the  Cardinal  La  Balue,  who 
survived  so  much  longer  than  might  have  been 
expected  this  extraordinary  mixture  of  seclusion 
and  exposure.  All  these  things  form  part  of  the 
castle  of  Loches,  whose  enormous  eiiceinte  covers 
the  whole  of  the  top  of  the  hill,  and  abounds  in 
dismantled  gateways,  in  crooked  passages,  in 
winding  lanes  that  lead  to  postern  doors,  in  long 
facades  that  look  upon  terraces  interdicted  to  the 
visitor,  who  perceives  with  irritation  that  they 
command  magnificent  views.  These  views  are 
the  property  of  the  sub-prefect  of  the  department, 
who  resides  at  the  Chateau  de  Loches,  and  who 
has  also  the  enjoyment  of  a  garden,  —  a  garden 
compressed  and  curtailed,  as  those  of  old  castles 
that  perch  on  hilltops  are  apt  to  be,  —  containing  a 
horse-chestnut  tree' of  fabulous  size,  a  tree  of  a 
circumference  so  vast  and  so  perfect  that  the 
whole  population  of  Loches  might  sit  in  concentric 


OLD   TOWN   GATE,   LOCHES 


LOCHES  95 

rows  beneath  its  boughs.  The  gem  of  the  place, 
however,  is  neither  the  big  marronier,  nor  the 
collegial  church,  nor  the  mighty  dungeon,  nor  the 
hideous  prisons  of  Louis  XI.  ;  it  is  simply  the 
tomb  of  Agnes  Sorel,  la  belle  des  belles,  so  many 
years  the  mistress  of  Charles  VII.  She  was 
buried  in  1450,  in  the  collegial  church,  whence,  in 
the  beginning  of  the  present  century,  her  remains, 
with  the  monument  that  marks  them,  were  trans- 
ferred to  one  of  the  towers  of  the  castle.  She  has 
always,  I  know  not  with  what  justice,  enjoyed  a 
fairer  fame  than  most  ladies  who  have  occupied 
her  position,  and  this  fairness  is  expressed  in  the 
delicate  statue  that  surmounts  her  tomb.  It  repre- 
sents her  lying  there  in  lovely  demureness,  her 
hands  folded  with  the  best  modesty,  a  little  kneel- 
ing angel  at  either  side  of  her  head,  and  her  feet, 
hidden  in  the  folds  of  her  decent  robe,  resting 
upon  a  pair  of  couchant  lambs,  innocent  remind- 
ers of  her  name.  Agnes,  however,  was  not  lamb- 
like, inasmuch  as,  according  to  popular  tradition 
at  least,  she  exerted  herself  sharply  in  favor  of 
the  expulsion  of  the  English  from  France.  It  is 
one  of  the  suggestions  of  Loches  that  the  young 
Charles  VI I. ,  hard  put  to  it  as  he  was  for  a  trea- 
sury and  a  capital, — "  le  roi  de  Bourges,"  he  was 
called  at  Paris, — was  yet  a  rather  privileged  mortal, 
to  stand  up  as  he  does  before  posterity  between 


96     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

the  noble  Joan  and  the  gentille  Agnh  ;  deriving, 
however,  much  more  honor  from  one  of  these 
companions  than  from  the  other.  Almost  as  deli- 
cate a  relic  of  antiquity  as  this  fascinating  tomb  is 
the  exquisite  oratory  of  Anne  of  Brittany,  among 
the  apartments  of  the  castle  the  only  chamber 
worthy  of  note.  This  small  room,  hardly  larger 
than  a  closet,  and  forming  part  of  the  addition 
made  to  the  edifice  by  Charles  VIII.,  is  embroid- 
ered over  with  the  curious  and  remarkably  deco- 
rative device  of  the  ermine  and  festooned  cord. 
The  objects  in  themselves  are  not  especially  grace- 
ful, but  the  constant  repetition  of  the  figure  on 
the  walls  and  ceiling  produces  an  effect  of  rich- 
ness in  spite  of  the  modern  whitewash  with  which, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  they  have  been  endued. 
The  little  streets  of  Loches  wander  crookedly 
down  the  hill  and  are  full  of  charming  pictorial 
"  bits  :  "  an  old  town-gate,  passing  under  a  medi- 
aeval tower,  which  is  ornamented  by  Gothic  win- 
dows and  the  empty  niches  of  statues ;  a  meagre 
but  delicate  hdtel  de  ville  of  the  Renaissance  nes- 
tling close  beside  it ;  a  curious  cJiancellcrie  of  the 
middle  of  the  sixteenth  century,  with  mythological 
figures  and  a  Latin  inscription  on  the  front  —  both 
of  these  latter  buildings  being  rather  unexpected 
features  of  the  huddled  and  precipitous  little 
town.     Loches  has  a  suburb  on  the  other  side  of 


LOCHES  97 

the  Indre,  which  we  had  contented  ourselves  with 
looking  down  at  from  the  heights  while  we  won- 
dered whether,  even  if  it  had  not  been  getting 
late  and  our  train  were  more  accommodating,  we 
should  care  to  take  our  way  across  the  bridge  and 
look  up  that  bust  in  terra-cotta  of  Francis  I.  which 
is  the  principal  ornament  of  the  Chateau  de  San- 
sac  and  the  faubourg  of  Beaulieu.  I  think  we 
decided  that  we  should  not,  that  we  had  already 
often  measured  the  longest  nose  in  history. 


XI 

BOURGES 

I  KNOW  not  whether  the  exact  Hmits  of  an 
excursion  as  distinguished  from  a  journey 
have  ever  been  fixed  ;  at  any  rate,  it  seemed  none 
of  my  business  at  Tours  to  settle  the  question. 
Therefore,  though  the  making  of  excursions  had 


BOURGES  99 

been  the  purpose  of  my  stay,  I  thought  it  vain, 
while  I  started  for  Bourges,  to  determine  to  which 
category  that  little  expedition  might  belong.  It 
was  not  till  the  third  day  that  I  returned  to  Tours ; 
and  the  distance,  traversed  for  the  most  part  after 
dark,  was  even  greater  than  I  had  supposed. 
That,  however,  was  partly  the  fault  of  a  tiresome 
wait  at  Vierzon,  where  I  had  more  than  enough 
time  to  dine,  very  badly,  at  the  buffet,  and  to  ob- 
serve the  proceedings  of  a  family  who  had  entered 
my  railway  carriage  at  Tours,  and  had  conversed 
unreservedly  for  my  benefit  all  the  way  from 
that  station  —  a  family  whom  it  entertained  me 
to  assign  to  the  class  of  petite  noblesse  de  province. 
Their  noble  origin  was  confirmed  by  the  way  they 
all  "made  maigre''  in  the  refreshment-room  (it 
happened  to  be  a  Friday),  as  if  it  had  been  possi- 
ble to  do  anything  else.  They  ate  two  or  three 
omelets  apiece,  and  ever  so  many  little  cakes, 
while  the  positive,  talkative  mother  watched  her 
children  as  the  waiter  handed  about  the  roast 
fowl.  I  was  destined  to  share  the  secrets  of  this 
family  to  the  end  ;  for  while  I  took  my  place  in 
the  empty  train  that  was  in  waiting  to  convey  us 
to  Bourges,  the  same  vigilant  woman  pushed  them 
all  on  top  of  me  into  my  compartment,  though 
the  carriages  on  either  side  contained  no  travel- 
ers at  alL     It  was  better,  I  found,  to  have  dined 


lOO    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

(even  on  omelets  and  little  cakes)  at  the  station 
at  Vierzon  than  at  the  hotel  at  Bourges,  which, 
when  I  reached  it  at  nine  o'clock  at  night,  did  not 
strike  me  as  the  prince  of  hotels.  The  inns  in  the 
smaller  provincial  towns  in  France  are  all,  as  the 
term  is,  commercial,  and  the  commis-voyageur  is 
in  triumphant  possession.  I  saw  a  great  deal  of 
him  for  several  weeks  after  this  ;  for  he  was  ap- 
parently the  only  traveler  in  the  southern  pro- 
vinces, and  it  was  my  daily  fate  to  sit  opposite  to 
him  at  tables  d'hote  and  in  railway  trains.  He 
may  be  known  by  two  infallible  signs  —  his  hands 
are  fat  and  he  tucks  his  napkin  into  his  shirt- 
collar.  In  spite  of  these  idiosyncrasies  he  seemed 
to  me  a  reserved  and  inoffensive  person,  with  sin- 
gularly little  of  the  demonstrative  good-humor 
that  he  has  been  described  as  possessing.  I  saw 
no  one  who  reminded  me  of  Balzac's  "  illustre 
Gaudissart  ; "  and  indeed  in  the  course  of  a 
month's  journey  through  a  large  part  of  France 
I  heard  so  little  desultory  conversation  that  I 
wondered  whether  a  change  had  not  come  over 
the  spirit  of  the  people.  They  seemed  to  me  as 
silent  as  Americans  when  Americans  have  not 
been  "introduced,"  and  infinitely  less  addicted 
to  exchanging  remarks  in  railway  trains  and  at 
tables  cV Jiotc  than  the  colloquial  and  cursory  Eng- 
lish ;  a  fact  perhaps  not  worth  mentioning,  were 


BOURGES  loi 

it  not  at  variance  with  that  reputation  which  the 
French  have  long  enjoyed  of  being  a  preeminently 
sociable  nation.  The  common  report  of  the  char- 
acter of  a  people  is,  however,  an  indefinable  pro- 
duct, and  is  apt  to  strike  the  traveler  who  observes 
for  himself  as  very  wide  of  the  mark.  The  Eng- 
lish, who  have  for  ages  been  described  (mainly 
by  the  French)  as  the  dumb,  stiff,  unapproachable 
race,  present  to-day  a  remarkable  appearance  of 
good-humor  and  garrulity,  and  are  distinguished 
by  their  facility  of  intercourse.  On  the  other 
hand,  any  one  who  has  seen  half  a  dozen  French- 
men pass  a  whole  day  together  in  a  railway  car- 
riage without  breaking  silence,  is  forced  to  believe 
that  the  traditional  reputation  of  these  gentlemen 
is  simply  the  survival  of  some  primitive  formula. 
It  was  true,  doubtless,  before  the  Revolution  ;  but 
there  have  been  great  changes  since  then.  The 
question  of  which  is  the  better  taste,  to  talk  to 
strangers  or  to  hold  your  tongue,  is  a  njatter 
apart ;  I  incline  to  believe  that  the  French  reserve 
is  the  result  of  a  more  definite  conception  of  social 
behavior.  I  allude  to  it  only  because  it  is  at  vari- 
ance with  the  national  fame  and  at  the  same  time 
compatible  with  a  very  easy  view  of  life  in  certain 
other  directions.  On  some  of  these  latter  points 
the  Boule  d'Or  at  Bourges  was  full  of  instruction  ; 
boasting  as  it  did  of  a  hall  of  reception  in  which, 


I02     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

amid  old  boots  that  had  been  brought  to  be 
cleaned,  old  linen  that  was  being  sorted  for  the 
wash,  and  lamps  of  evil  odor  that  were  awaiting 
replenishment,  a  strange,  familiar,  promiscuous 
household  life  went  forward.  Small  scullions,  in 
white  caps  and  aprons,  slept  upon  greasy  benches  ; 
the  boots  sat  staring  at  you  while  you  fumbled, 
helpless,  in  a  row  of  pigeon-holes,  for  your  candle-, 
stick  or  your  key  ;  and,  amid  the  coming  and 
going  of  the  comrnis-voyageiirs,  a  little  sempstress 
bent  over  the  under-garments  of  the  hostess  — ■ 
the  latter  being  a  heavy,  stern,  silent  woman,  who 
looked  at  people  very  hard. 

It  was  not  to  be  looked  at  in  that  manner  that 
one  had  come  all  the  way  from  Tours  ;  so  that 
within  ten  minutes  after  my  arrival  I  sallied  out 
into  the  darkness  to  form  somehow  and  some- 
where a  happier  relation.  However  late  in  the 
evening  I  may  arrive  at  a  place,  I  never  go  to 
bed  without  my  impression.  The  natural  place  at 
Bourges  to  look  for  it  seemed  to  be  the  cathedral ; 
which,  moreover,  was  the  only  thing  that  could 
account  for  my  presence  dans  cctte  galbre.  I 
turned  out  of  a  small  square  in  front  of  the  hotel 
and  walked  up  a  narrow,  sloping  street  paved  with 
big,  rough  stones  and  guiltless  of  a  footway.  It 
was  a  splendid  starlight  night ;  the  stillness  of  a 
sleeping  ville  de  province  was  over  everything  ;  I 


BOURGES  103 

had  the  whole  place  to  myself.  I  turned  to  my 
right,  at  the  top  of  the  street,  where  presently  a 
short,  vague  lane  brought  me  into  sight  of  the 
cathedral.  I  approached  it  obliquely,  from  behind  ; 
it  loomed  up  in  the  darkness  above  me  enor- 
mous and  sublime.  It  stands  on  the  top  of  the 
large  but  lofty  eminence  over  which  Bourges 
is  scattered  —  a  very  good  position  as  French 
cathedrals  go,  for  they  are  not  all  so  nobly  situ- 
ated as  Chartres  and  Laon.  On  the  side  on  which 
I  approached  it  (the  south)  it  is  tolerably  well  ex- 
posed, though  the  precinct  is  shabby ;  in  front,  it  is 
rather  too  much  shut  in.  These  defects,  however, 
it  makes  up  for  on  the  north  side  and  behind, 
where  it  presents  itself  in  the  most  admirable 
manner  to  the  garden  of  the  Archeveche,  which 
has  been  arranged  as  a  public  walk,  with  the  usual 
formal  alleys  of  the  jardin  frangais.  I  must  add 
that  I  appreciated  these  points  only  on  the  fol- 
lowing day.  As  I  stood  there  in  the  light  of  the 
stars,  many  of  which  had  an  autumnal  sharpness, 
while  others  were  shooting  over  the  heavens,  the 
huge,  rugged  vessel  of  the  church  overhung  me 
in  very  much  the  same  way  as  the  black  hull  of  a 
ship  at  sea  would  overhang  a  solitary  swimmer. 
It  seemed  colossal,  stupendous,  a  dark  leviathan. 

The  next  morning,  which  was  lovely,  I  lost  no 
time  in  going  back  to  it,  and  found  with  satisfac- 


104     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

tion  that  the  daylight  did  it  no  injury.  The  cathe- 
dral of  Bourges  is  indeed  magnificently  huge,  and 
if  it  is  a  good  deal  wanting  in  lightness  and  grace 
it  is  perhaps  only  the  more  imposing.  I  read  in 
the  excellent  handbook  of  M.  Joanne  that  it  was 
projected  ^^  dh  1172,"  but  commenced  only  in  the 
first  years  of  the  thirteenth  century.  "The  nave," 
the  writer  adds,  "  was  finished  tant  biai  qtie  mal, 
faute  de  ressoiirces  ;  the  fa9ade  is  of  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries  in  its  lower  part,  and  of 
the  fourteenth  in  its  upper."  The  allusion  to  the 
nave  means  the  omission  of  the  transepts.  The 
west  front  consists  of  two  vast  but  imperfect 
towers ;  one  of  which  (the  south)  is  immensely 
buttressed,  so  that  its  outline  slopes  forward  like 
that  of  a  pyramid.  This  is  the  taller  of  the  two. 
If  they  had  spires  these  towers  would  be  prodi- 
gious ;  as  it  is,  given  the  rest  of  the  church,  they 
are  wanting  in  elevation.  There  are  five  deeply 
recessed  portals  all  in  a  row,  each  surmounted 
with  a  gable ;  the  gable  over  the  central  door 
being  exceptionally  high.  Above  the  porches, 
which  give  the  measure  of  its  width,  the  front 
rears  itself,  piles  itself,  on  a  great  scale,  carried 
up  by  galleries,  arches,  windows,  sculptures,  and 
supported  by  the  extraordinarily  thick  buttresses 
of  which  I  have  spoken  and  which,  though  they 
embellish  it  with  deep  shadows  thrown  sidewise, 


CATHEDRAL   OF    BOURGES,    THE   WEST   FRONT 


•  •  • 


BOURGES  105 

do  not  improve  its  style.  The  portals,  especially 
the  middle  one,  are  extremely  interesting ;  they 
are  covered  with  curious  early  sculptures.  The 
middle  one,  however,  I  must  describe  alone.  It 
has  no  less  than  six  rows  of  figures  —  the  others 
have  four  — some  of  which,  notably  the  upper 
one,  are  still  in  their  places.  The  arch  at  the  top 
has  three  tiers  of  elaborate  imagery.  The  upper 
of  these  is  divided  by  the  figure  of  Christ  in  judg- 
ment, of  great  size,  stiff  and  terrible,  with  out- 
stretched arms.  On  either  side  of  him  are  ranged 
three  or  four  angels,  with  the  instruments  of  the 
Passion.  Beneath  him,  in  the  second  frieze,  stands 
the  angel  of  justice  with  the  scales ;  and  on  either 
side  of  him  is  the  vision  of  the  last  judgment. 
The  good  prepare,  with  infinite  titillation  and  com- 
placency, to  ascend  the  skies ;  while  the  bad  are 
dragged,  pushed,  hurled,  stuffed,  crammed,  into 
pits  and  caldrons  of  fire.  There  is  a  charming 
detail  in  this  section.  Beside  the  angel,  on  the 
right,  where  the  wicked  are  the  prey  of  demons, 
stands  a  little  female  figure,  that  of  a  child,  who, 
with  hands  meekly  folded  and  head  gently  raised, 
waits  for  the  stern  angel  to  decide  upon  her  fate. 
In  this  fate,  however,  a  dreadful  big  devil  also 
takes  a  keen  interest ;  he  seems  on  the  point  of 
appropriating  the  tender  creature ;  he  has  a  face 
like  a  goat  and  an  enormous  hooked  nose.     But 


io6    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

the  angel  gently  lays  a  hand  upon  the  shoulder  of 
the  little  girl  —  the  movement  is  full  of  dignity  — 
as  if  to  say  :  **  No  ;  she  belongs  to  the  other  side." 
The  frieze  below  represents  the  general  resurrec- 
tion, with  the  good  and  the  wicked  emerging  from 
their  sepulchres.  Nothing  can  be  more  quaint 
and  charming  than  the  difference  shown  in  their 
way  of  responding  to  the  final  trump.  The  good 
get  out  of  their  tombs  with  a  certain  modest 
gayety,  an  alacrity  tempered  by  respect ;  one  of 
them  kneels  to  pray  as  soon  as  he  has  disinterred 
himself.  You  may  know  the  wicked,  on  the  other 
hand,  by  their  extreme  shyness ;  they  crawl  out 
slowly  and  fearfully ;  they  hang  back ;  and  seem 
to  say  "  Oh,  dear  ! "  These  elaborate  sculptures, 
full  of  ingenuous  intention  and  of  the  reality  of 
early  faith,  are  in  a  remarkable  state  of  preser- 
vation ;  they  bear  no  superficial  signs  of  restora- 
tion and  appear  scarcely  to  have  suffered  from 
the  centuries.  They  are  delightfully  expressive  ; 
the  artist  had  the  advantage  of  knowing  exactly 
the  effect  he  wished  to  produce. 

The  interior  of  the  cathedral  has  a  great  sim- 
plicity and  majesty  and,  above  all,  a  tremendous 
height.  The  nave  is  extraordinary  in  this  respect ; 
it  dwarfs  everything  else  I  know.  I  should  add, 
however,  that  I  am  in  architecture  always  of  the 
opinion  of  the  last  speaker.     Any  great  building 


BOURGES  107 

seems  to  me,  while  I  look  at  it,  the  ultimate  ex- 
pression. At  any  rate,  during  the  hour  that  I  sat 
gazing  along  the  high  vista  of  Bourges,  the  inte- 
rior of  the  great  vessel  corresponded  to  my  vision 
of  the  evening  before.  There  is  a  tranquil  large- 
ness, a  kind  of  infinitude,  about  such  an  edifice ; 
it  soothes  and  purifies  the  spirit,  it  illuminates  the 
mind.  There  are  two  aisles,  on  either  side,  in 
addition  to  the  nave  —  five  in  all  —  and,  as  I  have 
said,  there  are  no  transepts;  an  omission  which 
lengthens  the  vista,  so  that  from  my  place  near 
the  door  the  central  jeweled  window  in  the  depths 
of  the  perpendicular  choir  seemed  a  mile  or  two 
away.  The  second  or  outward  of  each  pair  of 
aisles  is  too  low  and  the  first  too  high ;  without 
this  inequality  the  nave  would  appear  to  take  an 
even  more  prodigious  flight.  The  double  aisles 
pass  all  the  way  round  the  choir,  the  windows  of 
which  are  inordinately  rich  in  magnificent  old 
glass.  I  have  seen  glass  as  fine  in  other  churches, 
but  I  think  I  have  never  seen  so  much  of  it  at 
once. 

Beside  the  cathedral,  on  the  north,  is  a  curious 
structure  of  the  fourteenth  or  fifteenth  century, 
which  looks  like  an  enormous  flying  buttress,  with 
its  support,  sustaining  the  north  tower.  It  makes 
a  massive  arch,  high  in  the  air,  and  produces  a 
romantic  effect  as  people  pass  under  it  to  the 


io8     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

open  gardens  of  the  Archeveche,  which  extend  to 
a  considerable  distance  in  the  rear  of  the  church. 
The  structure  supporting  the  arch  has  the  girth 
of  a  largeish  house,  and  contains  chambers  with 
whose  uses  I  am  unacquainted,  but  to  which  the 
deep  pulsations  of  the  cathedral,  the  vibration  of 
its  mighty  bells,  and  the  roll  of  its  organ  tones 
must  be  transmitted  even  through  the  great  arm 
of  stone. 

The  archiepiscopal  palace,  not  walled  in  as  at 
Tours,  is  visible  as  a  stately  habitation  of  the  last 
century,  at  the  time  of  my  visit  under  repair  after 
a  fire.  From  this  side  and  from  the  gardens  of  the 
palace  the  nave  of  the  cathedral  is  visible  in  all  its 
great  length  and  height,  with  its  extraordinary 
multitude  of  supports.  The  gardens  aforesaid,  ac- 
cessible through  tall  iron  gates,  are  the  promenade 
—  the  Tuileries  —  of  the  town,  and,  very  pretty 
in  themselves,  are  immensely  set  off  by  the  over- 
hanging church.  It  was  warm  and  sunny ;  the 
benches  were  empty ;  I  sat  there  a  long  time  in 
that  pleasant  state  of  mind  which  visits  the  trav- 
eler in  foreign  towns,  when  he  is  not  too  hurried, 
while  he  wonders  where  he  had  better  go  next. 
The  straight,  unbroken  line  of  the  roof  of  the 
cathedral  was  very  noble ;  but  I  could  see  from 
this  point  how  much  finer  the  effect  would  have 
been  if  the  towers,  which  had  dropped  almost  out 


BOURGES  109 

of  sight,  might  have  been  carried  still  higher.  The 
archiepiscopal  gardens  look  down  at  one  end  over 
a  sort  of  esplanade  or  suburban  avenue  lying  on  a 
lower  level,  on  which  they  open,  and  where  several 
detachments  of  soldiers  (Bourges  is  full  of  soldiers) 
had  just  been  drawn  up.  The  civil  population 
was  also  collecting,  and  I  saw  that  something  was 
going  to  happen.  I  learned  that  a  private  of  the 
Chasseurs  was  to  be  *'  broken  "  for  stealing,  and 
every  one  was  eager  to  behold  the  ceremony. 
Sundry  other  detachments  arrived  on  the  ground, 
besides  many  of  the  military  who  had  come  as 
a  matter  of  taste.  One  of  them  described  to  me 
the  process  of  degradation  from  the  ranks,  and 
I  felt  for  a  moment  a  hideous  curiosity  to  see  it, 
under  the  influence  of  which  I  lingered  a  little. 
But  only  a  little ;  the  hateful  nature  of  the  spec- 
tacle hurried  me  away  at  the  same  time  that 
others  were  hurrying  forward.  As  I  turned  my 
back  upon  it,  I  reflected  that  human  beings  are 
cruel  brutes,  though  I  could  not  flatter  myself 
that  the  ferocity  of  the  thing  was  exclusively 
French.  In  another  country  the  concourse  would 
have  been  equally  great,  and  the  moral  of  it  all 
seemed  to  be  that  military  penalties  are  as  terrible 
as  military  honors  are  gratifying. 


XII 


BOURGES:     JACQUES    CCEUR 

THE  cathedral  is  not  the  only  lion  of  Bourges ; 
the  house  of  Jacques  Coeur  awaits  you  in 
posture  scarcely  less  leonine.  This  remarkable 
man  had  a  very  strange  history,  and  he  too  was 
*' broken,"  like  the  wretched  soldier  whom  I  did 
not  stay  to  see.  He  has  been  rehabilitated,  how- 
ever, by  an  age  which  does  not  fear  the  imputation 
of  paradox,  and  a  marble  statue  of  him  ornaments 
the  street  in  front  of  his  house.    To  interpret  him 


BOURGES:   JACQUES    CCEUR     iii 

according  to  this  image  —  a  womanish  figure  in  a 
long  robe  and  a  turban,  with  big  bare  arms  and  a 
dramatic  pose  —  would  be  to  think  of  him  as  a  kind 
of  truculent  sultana.  He  wore  the  dress  of  his 
period,  but  his  spirit  was  very  modern ;  he  was  a 
Vanderbilt  or  a  Rothschild  of  the  fifteenth  cen- 
tury. He  supplied  the  ungrateful  Charles  VH. 
with  money  to  pay  the  troops  who,  under  the 
heroic  Maid,  drove  the  English  from  French  soil. 
His  house,  which  to-day  is  used  as  a  Palais  de 
Justice,  appears  to  have  been  regarded  at  the  time 
it  was  built  very  much  as  the  residence  of  Mr. 
Vanderbilt  is  regarded  in  New  York  to-day.  It 
stands  on  the  edge  of  the  hill  on  which  most  of 
the  town  is  planted,  so  that,  behind,  it  plunges 
down  to  a  lower  level,  and,  if  you  approach  it  on 
that  side,  as  I  did,  to  come  round  to  the  front  of 
it,  you  have  to  ascend  a  longish  flight  of  steps. 
The  back,  of  old,  must  have  formed  a  portion  of 
the  city  wall ;  at  any  rate  it  offers  to  view  two  big 
towers,  which  Joanne  says  were  formerly  part  of 
the  defence  of  Bourges.  From  the  lower  level  of 
which  I  speak  —  the  square  in  front  of  the  post 
office  —  the  palace  of  Jacques  Coeur  looks  very 
big  and  strong  and  feudal ;  from  the  upper  street, 
in  front  of  it,  it  looks  very  handsome  and  delicate. 
To  this  street  it  presents  two  tiers  and  a  consider- 
able length  of  facade ;  and  it  has  both  within  and 


112     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

without  a  great  deal  of  curious  and  beautiful  de- 
tail. Above  the  portal,  in  the  stonework,  are  two 
false  windows,  in  which  two  figures,  a  man  and  a 
woman,  apparently  household  servants,  are  repre- 
sented, in  sculpture,  as  looking  down  into  the 
street.  The  effect  is  homely,  yet  grotesque,  and 
the  figures  are  sufficiently  living  to  make  one  com- 
miserate them  for  having  been  condemned,  in  so 
dull  a  town,  to  spend  several  centuries  at  the  win- 
dow. They  appear  to  be  watching  for  the  return 
of  their  master,  who  left  his  beautiful  house  one, 
morning  and  never  came  back. 

The  history  of  Jacques  Coeur,  which  has  been 
written  by  M.  Pierre  Clement  in  a  volume  crowned 
by  the  French  Academy,  is  very  wonderful  and  in- 
teresting, but  I  have  no  space  to  go  into  it  here. 
There  is  no  more  curious  example,  and  few  more 
tragical,  of  a  great  fortune  crumbling  from  one 
day  to  the  other,  or  of  the  antique  superstition 
that  the  gods  grow  jealous  of  human  success. 
Merchant,  millionaire,  banker,  ship-owner,  royal 
favorite  and  minister  of  finance,  explorer  of  the 
East  and  monopolist  of  the  glittering  trade  be- 
tween that  quarter  of  the  globe  and  his  own,  great 
capitalist  who  had  anticipated  the  brilliant  opera- 
tions of  the  present  time,  he  expiated  his  prosper- 
ity by  poverty,  imprisonment,  and  torture.  The 
obscure  points  in  his  career  have  been  elucidated 


THE   HOUSE  OF   JACQUES  COEUR,   BOURGES 


»     •   •  • 


•     « 


BOURGES:   JACQUES   CCEUR     113 

by  M.  Clement,  who  has  drawn,  moreover,  a  very 
vivid  picture  of  the  corrupt  and  exhausted  state  of 
France  during  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century. 
He  has  shown  that  the  spoliation  of  the  great 
merchant  was  a  deliberately  calculated  act,  and 
that  the  king  sacrificed  him,  without  scruple  or 
shame,  to  the  avidity  of  a  singularly  villainous  set 
of  courtiers.  The  whole  story  is  an  extraordinary 
picture  of  high-handed  rapacity  —  the  crudest  pos- 
sible assertion  of  the  right  of  the  stronger.  The 
victim  was  stripped  of  his  property,  but  escaped 
with  his  lifCy  made  his  way  out  of  France  and,  be- 
taking himself  to  Italy,  offered  his  services  to  the 
Pope.  It  is  proof  of  the  consideration  that  he  en- 
joyed in  Europe,  and  of  the  variety  of  his  accom- 
plishments, that  Calixtus  III.  should  have  appointed 
him  to  take  command  of  a  fleet  which  his  Holiness 
was  fitting  out  against  the  Turks.  Jacques  Coeur, 
however,  was  not  destined  to  lead  it  to  victory. 
He  died  shortly  after  the  expedition  had  started, 
in  the  island  of  Chios,  in  1456.  The  house  at 
Bourges,  his  native  place,  testifies  in  some  degree 
to  his  wealth  and  splendor,  though  it  has  in  parts 
that  want  of  space  which  is  striking  in  many  of 
the  buildings  of  the  Middle  Ages.  The  court,  in- 
deed, is  on  a  large  scale,  ornamented  with  turrets 
and  arcades,  with  several  beautiful  windows  and 
with  sculpture^  inserted  in  the  walls,  representing 


114     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

the  various  sources  of  the  great  fortune  of  the 
owner.  M.  Pierre  Clement  describes  this  part  of 
the  house  as  having  been  of  an  "incomparable 
richesse" — an  estimate  of  its  charms  which  seems 
slightly  exaggerated  to-day.  There  is,  however, 
something  delicate  and  familiar  in  the  bas-reliefs 
of  which  I  have  spoken,  little  scenes  of  agriculture 
and  industry,  which  show  that  the  proprietor  was 
not  ashamed  of  calling  attention  to  his  harvests 
and  enterprises.  To-day  we  should  question  the 
taste  of  such  allusions,  even  in  plastic  form,  in  the 
house  of  a  "merchant  prince,"  however  self-made. 
Why  should  it  be,  accordingly,  that  these  quaint 
little  panels  at  Bourges  do  not  displease  us  ?  It 
is  perhaps  because  things  very  ancient  never,  for 
some  mysterious  reason,  appear  vulgar.  This  fif- 
teenth-century millionaire,  with  his  palace,  his 
"swagger"  sculptures,  may  have  produced  that 
impression  on  some  critical  spirits  of  his  own  day. 
The  portress  who  showed  me  into  the  building 
was  a  dear  little  old  woman,  with  the  gentlest, 
sweetest,  saddest  face  —  a  little  white,  aged  face, 
with  dark,  pretty  eyes  —  and  the  most  considerate 
manner.  She  took  me  up  into  an  upper  hall, 
where  there  were  a  couple  of  curious  chimney- 
pieces  and  a  fine,  old,  oaken  roof,  the  latter  repre- 
senting the  hollow  of  a  long  boat.  There  is  a 
certain  oddity  in  a  native  of  Bourges  —  an  inland 


BOURGES:  JACQUES   CGEUR     115 

town  if  ever  there  was  one,  without  even  a  river 
(to  call  a  river)  to  encourage  nautical  ambitions  — 
having  found  his  end  as  admiral  of  a  fleet ;  but 
this  boat-shaped  roof,  which  is  extremely  grace- 
ful and  is  repeated  in  another  apartment,  would 
•suggest  that  the  imagination  of  Jacques  Coeur  was 
fond  of  riding  the  waves.  Indeed,  as  he  trafficked 
in  Oriental  products  and  owned  many  galleons,  it 
is  probable  that  he  was  personally  as  much  at 
home  in  certain  Mediterranean  ports  as  in  the 
capital  of  the  pastoral  Berry.  If,  when  he  looked 
at  the  ceilings  of  his  mansion,  he  saw  his  boats 
upside  down,  this  was  only  a  suggestion  of  the 
shortest  way  of  emptying  them  of  their  treasures. 
He  is  presented  in  person  above  one  of  the  great 
stone  chimney-pieces,  in  company  with  his  wife, 
Macee  de  Leodepart  —  I  like  to  write  such  an  ex- 
traordinary name.  Carved  in  white  stone,  the  two 
sit  playing  at  chess  at  an  open  window,  through 
which  they  appear  to  give  their  attention  much 
more  to  the  passers-by  than  to  the  game.  They 
are  also  exhibited  in  other  attitudes ;  though  I  do 
not  recognize  them  in  the  composition,  on  top  of 
one  of  the  fireplaces,  which  represents  the  battle- 
ments of  a  castle,  with  the  defenders  (little  figures 
between  the  crenellations)  hurling  down  missiles 
with  a  great  deal  of  fury  and  expression.  It  would 
have  been  hard  to  believe  that  the  man  who  sur- 


ii6     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

rounded  himself  with  these  friendly  and  humorous 
devices  had  been  guilty  of  such  wrong-doing  as  to 
call  down  the  heavy  hand  of  justice. 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  however,  that  Bourges  con- 
tains legal  associations  of  a  purer  kind  than  the 
prosecution  of  Jacques  Coeur,  which,  in  spite  of 
the  rehabilitations  of  history,  can  hardly  be  said 
yet  to  have  terminated,  inasmuch  as  the  law 
courts  of  the  city  are  installed  in  his  quondam 
residence.  At  a  short  distance  from  it  stands  the 
Hdtel  Cujas,  one  of  the  curiosities  of  Bourges,  and 
the  habitation  for  many  years  of  the  great  juris- 
consult, who  revived  in  the  sixteenth  century  the 
study  of  the  Roman  law,  and  professed  it  during 
the  close  of  his  life  in  the  university  of  the  capital 
of  Berry.  The  learned  Cujas  had,  in  spite  of  his 
sedentary  pursuits,  led  a  very  wandering  life ;  he 
died  at  Bourges  in  the  year  1 590.  Sedentary  pur- 
suits are  perhaps  not  exactly  what  I  should  call 
them,  having  read  in  the  '*  Biographic  Universelle  " 
(sole  source  of  my  knowledge  of  the  renowned 
Cujacius)  that  his  usual  manner  of  study  was  to 
spread  himself  on  his  belly  on  the  floor.  He  did 
not  sit  down,  he  lay  down  ;  and  the  ''  Biographic 
Universelle  "  has  (for  so  grave  a  work)  an  amusing 
picture  of  the  short,  fat,  untidy  scholar,  dragging 
himself  d  plat  ventre^  across  his  room,  from  one 
pile  of  books  to  the  other.     The  house  in  which 


BOURGES:   JACQUES    CCEUR     ii7 

these  singular  gymnastics  took  place  and  which  is 
now  the  headquarters  of  the  gendarmerie,  is  one 
of  the  most  picturesque  at  Bourges.  Dilapidated 
and  discolored,  it  has  a  charming  Renaissance 
front.  A  high  wall  separates  it  from  the  street, 
and  on  this  wall,  which  is  divided  by  a  large,  open 
gateway,  are  perched  two  overhanging  turrets. 
The  open  gateway  admits  you  to  the  court, 
beyond  which  the  melancholy  mansion  erects 
itself,  decorated  also  with  turrets,  with  fine,  old 
windows,  and  with  a  beautiful  tone  of  faded  red 
brick  and  rusty  stone.  It  is  a  charming  encoun- 
ter for  a  provincial  by-street ;  one  of  those  acci- 
dents in  the  hope  of  which  the  traveler  with  a 
propensity  for  sketching  (whether  on  a  little  paper 
block  or  on  the  tablets  of  his  brain)  decides  to 
turn  a  corner  at  a  venture.  A  brawny  gendarme 
in  his  shirt  sleeves  was  polishing  his  boots  in  the 
court ;  an  ancient,  knotted  vine,  forlorn  of  its 
clusters,  hung  itself  over  a  doorway  and  dropped 
its  shadow  on  the  rough  grain  of  the  wall.  The 
place  was  very  sketchable.  I  am  sorry  to  say, 
however,  that  it  was  almost  the  only  "  bit."  Vari- 
ous other  curious  old  houses  are  supposed  to  exist 
at  Bourges,  and  I  wandered  vaguely  about  in 
search  of  them.  But  I  had  little  success,  and  I 
ended  by  becoming  skeptical.  Bourges  is  a  vt7/e 
dc  province  in  the  full  force  of  the  term,  especially 


ii8     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

as  applied  invidiously.  The  streets,  narrow,  tor- 
tuous, and  dirty,  have  very  wide  cobble-stones ; 
the  houses,  for  the  most  part,  are  shabby,  without 
local  color.  The  look  of  things  is  neither  mod- 
ern nor  antique  —  a  kind  of  mediocrity  of  middle 
age.  There  is  an  enormous  number  of  blank 
walls  —  walls  of  gardens,  of  courts,  of  private 
houses  —  that  avert  themselves  from  the  street  as 
if  in  natural  chagrin  at  there  being  so  little  to  see. 
Round  about  is  a  dull,  flat,  featureless  country, 
on  which  the  magnificent  cathedral  looks  down. 
There  is  a  peculiar  dullness  and  ugliness  in  a 
French  town  of  this  type,  which,  I  must  immedi- 
ately add,  is  not  the  most  frequent  one.  In  Italy 
everything  has  a  charm,  a  color,  a  grace ;  even 
desolation  and  ennui.  In  England  a  cathedral 
city  may  be  sleepy,  but  it  is  pretty  sure  to  be 
mellow.  In  the  course  of  six  weeks  spent  en 
province^  however,  I  saw  few  places  that  had  not 
more  expression  than  Bourges. 

I  went  back  to  the  cathedral ;  that,  after  all, 
was  a  feature.  Then  I  returned  to  my  hotel, 
where  it  was  time  to  dine,  and  sat  down,  as  usual, 
with  the  commis-voyageurs,  who  cut  their  bread  on 
their  thumb  and  partook  of  every  course  ;  and 
after  this  repast  I  repaired  for  a  while  to  the  cafe, 
which  occupied  a  part  of  the  basement  of  the  inn 
and   opened   into   its   court.      This    caf6   was   a 


HOTEL   LALLEMONT,    BOURGES 


•     t 


BOURGES:   JACQUES   CCEUR     119 

friendly,  homely,  sociable  spot,  where  it  seemed 
the  habit  of  the  master  of  the  establishment  to 
Uitoyer  his  customers  and  the  practice  of  the  cus- 
tomers to  ttUoyer  the  waiter.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances the  waiter  of  course  felt  justified  in 
sitting  down  at  the  same  table  with  a  gentleman 
who  had  come  in  and  asked  him  for  writing  mate- 
rials. He  served  this  gentleman  with  a  horrible 
little  portfolio  covered  with  shiny  black  cloth  and 
accompanied  with  two  sheets  of  thin  paper,  three 
wafers,  and  one  of  those  instruments  of  torture 
which  pass  in  France  for  pens  — these  being  the 
utensils  invariably  evoked  by  such  a  request ;  and 
then,  finding  himself  at  leisure,  he  placed  himself 
opposite  and  began  to  write  a  letter  of  his  own. 
This  trifling  incident  reminded  me  afresh  that 
France  is  a  democratic  country.  I  think  I  re- 
ceived an  admonition  to  the  same  effect  from  the 
free,  familiar  way  in  which  the  game  of  whist  was 
going  on  just  behind  me.  It  was  attended  with  a 
great  deal  of  noisy  pleasantry,  flavored  every  now 
and  then  with  a  dash  of  irritation.  There  was  a 
young  man  of  whom  I  made  a  note ;  he  was  such 
a  beautiful  specimen  of  his  class.  Sometimes  he 
was  very  facetious,  chattering,  joking,  punning, 
showing  off ;  then,  as  the  game  went  on  and  he 
lost  and  had  to  pay  the  consommation,  he  dropped 
his  amiability,  slanged   his   partner,  declared  he 


120    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

would  n't  play  any  more,  and  went  away  in  a  fury. 
Nothing  could  be  more  perfect  or  more  amusing 
than  the  contrast.  The  manner  of  the  whole 
affair  was  such  as,  I  apprehend,  one  would  not 
have  seen  among  our  English-speaking  people ; 
both  the  jauntiness  of  the  first  phase  and  the 
petulance  of  the  second.  To  hold  the  balance 
straight,  however,  I  may  remark  that  if  the  men 
were  all  fearful  "cads,"  they  were,  with  their 
cigarettes  and  their  inconsistency,  less  heavy,  less 
brutal,  than  our  dear  English-speaking  cad  ;  just 
as  the  bright  little  caf^,  where  a  robust  mater- 
familias,  doling  out  sugar  and  darning  a  stocking, 
sat  in  her  place  under  the  mirror  behind  the  comp- 
toirj  was  a  much  more  civilized  spot  than  a  British 
public-house  or  a  "commercial  room,"  with  pipes 
and  whiskey,  or  even  than  an  American  saloon. 


XIII 


LE   MANS 

IT  is  very  certain  that  when  I  left  Tours  for 
Le  Mans  it  was  a  journey  and  not  an  excur- 
sion ;  for  I  had  no  intention  of  coming  back.  The 
question,  indeed,  was  to  get  away  —  no  easy  mat- 
ter in  France,  in  the  early  days  of  October,  when 
the  whole  jeunesse  of  the  country  is  returning 
to  school.  It  is  accompanied,  apparently,  with 
parents  and  grandparents,  and  it  fills  the  trains 
with  little  pale-faced  lyceens^  who  gaze  out  of  the 
windows  with  a  longing,  lingering  air,  not  unnat- 
ural on  the  part  of  small  members  of  a  race  in 
which  life  is  intense,  who  are  about  to  be  restored 
to  those  big  educative  barracks  that  do  such  vio- 


122     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

lence  to  our  American  appreciation  of  the  opportu- 
nities of  boyhood.  The  train  stopped  every  five  min- 
utes ;  but,  fortunately,  the  country  was  charming 
—  hilly  and  bosky,  eminently  good-humored,  and 
dotted  here  and  there  with  a  smart  little  chateau. 
The  old  capital  of  the  province  of  the  Maine,  which 
has  given  its  name  to  a  great  American  State, 
is  a  fairly  interesting  town,  but  I  confess  that  I 
found  in  it  less  than  I  expected  to  admire.  My  ex- 
pectations had  doubtless  been  my  own  fault ;  there 
is  no  particular  reason  why  Le  Mans  should  fasci- 
nate. It  stands  upon  a  hill,  indeed  —  a  much 
better  hill  than  the  gentle  swell  of  Bourges.  This 
hill,  however,  is  not  steep  in  all  directions ;  from 
the  railway,  as  I  arrived,  it  was  not  even  percep- 
tible. Since  I  am  making  comparisons,  I  may 
remark  that,  on  the  other  hand,  the  Boule  d'Or  at 
Le  Mans  is  an  appreciably  better  inn  than  the 
Boule  d'Or  at  Bourges.  It  looks  out  upon  a  small 
market-place,  which  has  a  certain  amount  of  char- 
acter and  seems  to  be  slipping  down  the  slope  on 
which  it  lies,  though  it  has  in  the  middle  an  ugly 
halle^  or  circular  market-house,  to  keep  it  in  posi- 
tion. At  Le  Mans,  as  at  Bourges,  my  first  busi- 
ness was  with  the  cathedral,  to  which  I  lost  no 
time  in  directing  my  steps.  It  suffered  by  juxta- 
position to  the  great  church  I  had  seen  a  few 
days  before ;  yet  it  has  some  noble  features.     It 


LE   MANS  123 

stands  on  the  edge  of  the  eminence  of  the  town, 
which  falls  straight  away  on  two  sides  of  it,  and 
makes  a  striking  mass,  bristling  behind,  as  you  see 
it  from  below,  with  rather  small  but  singularly 
numerous  flying  buttresses.  On  my  way  to  it  I 
happened  to  walk  through  the  one  street  which 
contains  a  few  ancient  and  curious  houses,  a  very 
crooked  and  untidy  lane,  of  really  mediaeval  aspect, 
honored  with  the  denomination  of  the  Grand' 
Rue.  Here  is  the  house  of  Queen  Berengaria  — 
an  absurd  name,  as  the  building  is  of  a  date  some 
three  hundred  years  later  than  the  wife  of  Richard 
Coeur  de  Lion,  who  has  a  sepulchral  monument 
in  the  south  ai^le  of  the  cathedral.  The  structure 
in  question  —  very  sketchable,  if  the  sketcher 
could  get  far  enough  away  from  it  —  is  an  elab- 
orate little  dusky  fagade,  overhanging  the  street, 
ornamented  with  panels  of  stone,  which  are  covered 
with  delicate  Renaissance  sculpture.  A  fat  old 
woman  standing  in  the  door  of  a  small  grocer's 
shop  next  to  it  —  a  most  gracious  old  woman,  with 
a  bristling  mustache  and  a  charming  manner  — 
told  me  what  the  house  was,  and  also  indicated  to 
me  a  rotten-looking  brown  wooden  mansion  in  the 
same  street,  nearer  the  cathedral,  as  the  Maison 
Scarron.  The  author  of  the  "Roman  Comique  " 
and  of  a  thousand  facetious  verses  enjoyed  for 
some  years,  in  the  early  part  of  his  life,  a  benefice 


124     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

in  the  cathedral  of  Le  Mans,  which  gave  him  a 
right  to  reside  in  one  of  the  canonical  houses. 
He  was  rather  an  odd  canon,  but  his  history  is  a 
combination  of  oddities.  He  wooed  the  comic 
muse  from  the  armchair  of  a  cripple,  and  in  the 
same  position  —  he  was  unable  even  to  go  down 
on  his  knees  —  prosecuted  that  other  suit  which 
made  him  the  first  husband  of  a  lady  of  whom 
Louis  XIV.  was  to  be  the  second.  There  was 
little  of  comedy  in  the  future  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non ;  though,  after  all,  there  was  doubtless  as 
much  as  there  need  have  been  in  the  wife  of  a 
poor  man  who  was  moved  to  compose  for  his  tomb 
such  an  epitaph  as  this,  which  I  quote  from  the 
"  Biographic  Universelle  "  :  — 

"  Celui  qui  cy  maintenant  dort, 
Fit  plus  de  pitie  que  d'envie, 
Et  souffrit  mille  fois  la  mort, 
Avant  que  de  perdre  la  vie. 
Passant,  ne  fais  icy  de  bruit, 
Et  garde  bien  qu'il  ne  s'eveille, 
Car  voicy  la  premiere  nuit, 
Que  le  pauvre  Scarron  sommeille." 

There  is  rather  a  quiet,  satisfactory  place  in 
front  of  the  cathedral,  with  some  good  "  bits " 
in  it ;  notably  a  turret  at  the  angle  of  one  of  the 
towers  and  a  very  fine  steep-roofed  dwelling,  be- 
hind low  walls,  which  it  overlooks,  with  a  tall  iron 
gate.     This  house  has  two  or  three  little  pointed 


LE    MANS  125 

towers,  a  big  black,  precipitous  roof,  and  a  general 
air  of  having  had  a  history.  There  are  houses 
which  are  scenes,  and  there  are  houses  which  are 
only  houses.  The  trouble  with  the  domestic  ar- 
chitecture of  the  United  States  is  that  it  is  not 
scenic,  thank  goodness,  and  the  characteristic  of 
an  old  structure  like  the  turreted  mansion  on  the 
hillside  of  Le  Mans  is  that  it  is  not  simply  a  house. 
It  is  a  person,  as  it  were,  as  well.  It  would  be 
well,  indeed,  if  it  might  have  communicated  a  little 
of  its  personality  to  the  front  of  the  cathedral, 
which  has  none  of  its  own.  Shabby,  rusty,  un- 
finished, this  front  has  a  romanesque  portal,  but 
nothing  in  the  way  of  a  tower.  One  sees  from 
without,  at  a  glance,  the  peculiarity  of  the  church 
—  the  disparity  between  the  romanesque  nave, 
which  is  small  and  of  the  twelfth  century,  and 
the  immense  and  splendid  transepts  and  choir,  of 
a  period  a  hundred  years  later.  Outside,  this 
end  of  the  church  rises  far  above  the  nave,  which 
looks  merely  like  a  long  porch  leading  to  it,  with  a 
small  and  curious  romanesque  porch  in  its  own 
south  flank.  The  transepts,  shallow  but  very  lofty, 
display  to  the  spectators  in  the  place  the  reach 
of  their  two  clere-story  windows,  which  occupy, 
above,  the  whole  expanse  of  the  wall.  The  south 
transept  terminates  in  a  sort  of  tower,  which  is 
the  only  one  of  which  the  cathedral  can  boast. 


126    A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

Within,  the  effect  of  the  choir  is  superb  ;  it  is  a 
church  in  itself,  with  the  nave  simply  for  a  point 
of  view.  As  I  stood  there  I  read  in  my  Murray 
that  it  has  the  stamp  of  the  date  of  the  perfection 
of  pointed  Gothic,  and  I  found  nothing  to  object 
to  the  remark.  It  suffers  little  by  confrontation 
with  Bourges,  and,  taken  in  itself,  seems  to  me 
quite  as  fine.  A  passage  of  double  aisles  sur- 
rounds it,  with  the  arches  that  divide  them  sup- 
ported on  very  thick  round  columns,  not  clustered. 
There  are  twelve  chapels  in  this  passage,  and  a 
charming  little  lady-chapel  filled  with  gorgeous 
old  glass.  The  sustained  height  of  this  almost 
detached  choir  is  very  noble ;  its  lightness  and 
grace,  its  soaring  symmetry,  carry  the  eye  up  to 
places  in  the  air  from  which  it  is  slow  to  descend. 
Like  Tours,  like  Chart  res,  like  Bourges  (apparently 
like  all  the  French  cathedrals,  and  unlike  several 
English  ones),  Le  Mans  is  rich  in  splendid  glass. 
The  beautiful  upper  windows  of  the  choir  make, 
far  aloft,  a  brave  gallery  of  pictures,  blooming 
with  vivid  color.  It  is  the  south  transept  that 
contains  the  formless  image  —  a  clumsy  stone 
woman  lying  on  her  back  —  which  purports  to  re- 
present Queen  Berengaria  aforesaid. 

The  view  of  the  cathedral  from  the  rear  is,  as 
usual,  very  fine.  A  small  garden  behind  it  masks 
its  base ;  but  you  descend  the  hill  to  a  large /A^rr 
defoire,  adjacent  to  a  fine  old  public  promenade 


I 


^^     ! 


.-,i., 


^1| 


LE   MANS   CATHEDRAL:    NAVE,    FROM    TRANSEPT 


LE   MANS  127 

which  is  known  as  Les  Jacobins,  a  sort  of  minia- 
ture Tuileries,  where  I  strolled  for  a  while  in 
rectangular  alleys,  destitute  of  herbage,  and  re- 
ceived a  deeper  impression  of  vanished  things. 
The  cathedral,  on  the  pedestal  of  its  hill,  looks 
considerably  further  than  the  fair-ground  and  the 
Jacobins,  between  the  rather  bare  poles  of  whose 
straightly  planted  trees  you  may  admire  it  at  a 
convenient  distance.  I  admired  it  till  I  thought  I 
should  remember  it  (better  than  the  event  has 
proved),  and  then  I  wandered  away  and  looked  at 
another  curious  old  church,  Notre-Dame-de-la- 
Couture.  This  sacred  edifice  made  a  picture  for 
ten  minutes,  but  the  picture  has  faded  now.  I 
reconstruct  a  yellowish-brown  facade  and  a  portal 
fretted  with  early  sculptures ;  but  the  details  have 
gone  the  way  of  all  incomplete  sensations.  After 
you  have  stood  awhile  in  the  choir  of  the  cathedral 
there  is  no  sensation  at  Le  Mans  that  goes  very 
far.  For  some  reason  not  now  to  be  traced  I  had 
looked  for  more  than  this.  I  think  the  reason  was 
to  some  extent  simply  in  the  name  of  the  place  ; 
for  names,  on  the  whole,  whether  they  be  good 
reasons  or  not,  are  very  active  ones.  Le  Mans,  if 
I  am  not  mistaken,  has  a  sturdy,  feudal  sound  ; 
suggests  something  dark  and  square,  a  vision  of 
old  ramparts  and  gates.  Perhaps  I  had  been  un- 
duly impressed  by  the  fact,  accidentally  revealed 
to  me,  that  Henry  II.,  first  of  the  English  Planta- 


128     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

genets,  was  born  there.  Of  course  it  is  easy  to 
assure  one's  self  in  advance,  but  does  it  not  often 
happen  that  one  had  rather  not  be  assured  ? 
There  is  a  pleasure  sometimes  in  running  the  risk 
of  disappointment.  I  took  mine,  such  as  it  was, 
quietly  enough,  while  I  sat  before  dinner  at  the  door 
of  one  of  the  cafes  in  the  market-place  with  a  bitter- 
et-ctiragao  (invaluable  pretext  at  such  an  hour !) 
to  keep  me  company.  I  remember  that  in  this 
situation  there  came  over  me  an  impression  which 
both  included  and  excluded  all  possible  disappoint- 
ments. The  afternoon  was  warm  and  still ;  the  air 
was  admirably  soft.  The  good  Manceaux,  in  little 
groups  and  pairs,  were  seated  near  me ;  my  ear 
was  soothed  by  the  fine  shades  of  French  enun- 
ciation, by  the  detached  syllables  of  that  perfect 
tongue.  There  was  nothing  in  particular  in  the 
prospect  to  charm  ;  it  was  an  average  French  view. 
Yet  I  felt  a  charm,  a  kind  of  sympathy,  a  sense  of 
the  completeness  of  French  life  and  of  the  light- 
ness and  brightness  of  the  social  air,  together  with 
a  desire  to  arrive  at  friendly  judgments,  to  express 
a  positive  interest.  I  know  not  why  this  transcen- 
dental mood  should  have  descended  upon  me  then 
and  there  ;  but  that  idle  half-hour  in  front  of  the 
caf6,  in  the  mild  October  afternoon  suffused  with 
human  sounds,  is  perhaps  the  most  abiding  thing 
I  brought  away  from  Le  Mans.   . 


XIV 


ANGERS 


I  AM  shocked  at  finding,  just  after  this  noble 
declaration  of  principles,  that  in  a  little  note- 
book which  at  that  time  I  carried  about  with  me 
the  celebrated  city  of  Angers  is  denominated  a 
"sell."  I  reproduce  this  vulgar  word  with  the 
greatest  hesitation,  and  only  because  it  brings  me 
more  quickly  to  my  point.  This  point  is,  that 
Angers  belongs  to  the  disagreeable  class  of  old 
towns  that  have  been,  as  the  English  say,  "  done 


130     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

up."  Not  the  oldness,  but  the  newness,  of  the 
place  is  what  strikes  the  sentimental  tourist  to- 
day, as  he  wanders  with  irritation  along  second- 
rate  boulevards,  looking  vaguely  about  him  for 
absent  gables.  "  Black  Angers,"  in  short,  is  a  vic- 
tim of  modern  improvements  and  quite  unworthy 
of  its  admirable  name  —  a  name  which,  like  that 
of  Le  Mans,  had  always  had,  to  my  eyes,  a  highly 
picturesque  value.  It  looks  particularly  well  on 
the  Shakespearean  page  (in  ''  King  John  "),  where 
we  imagine  it  uttered  (though  such  would  not 
have  been  the  utterance  of  the  period)  with  a  fine 
grinding  insular  accent.  Angers  figures  with  im- 
portance in  early  English  history  :  it  was  the  capi- 
tal city  of  the  Plantagenet  race,  home  of  that 
Geoffrey  of  Anjou  who  married,  as  second  hus- 
band, the  Empress  Maud,  daughter  of  Henry  I. 
and  competitor  of  Stephen,  and  became  father  of 
Henry  II.,  first  of  the  Plantagenet  kings,  born, 
as  we  have  seen,  at  Le  Mans.  These  facts  create 
a  natural  presumption  that  Angers  will  look  his- 
toric ;  I  turned  them  over  in  my  mind  as  I  traveled 
in  the  train  from  Le  Mans,  through  a  country  that 
was  really  pretty  and  looked  more  like  the  usual 
I^^nglish  than  like  the  usual  French  scenery,  with 
its  fields  cut  up  by  hedges  and  a  considerable 
rotundity  in  its  trees.  On  my  way  from  the  sta- 
tion to  the  hotel,  however,  it  became  plain  that  I 


ANGERS,    FROM   THE   BRIDGE 


ANGERS  131 

should  lack  a  good  pretext  for  passing  that  night 
at  the  Cheval  Blanc ;  I  foresaw  that  I  should  have 
contented  myself  before  the  end  of  the  day.  I 
remained  at  the  White  Horse  only  long  enough  to 
discover  that  it  was  an  exceptionally  good  provin- 
cial inn,  one  of  the  best  that  I  encountered  during 
six  weeks  spent  in  these  establishments. 

"  Stupidly  and  vulgarly  modernized  "  —  that  is 
another  flower  from  my  note-book,  and  note-books 
are  not  obliged  to  be  reasonable.  "  There  are 
some  narrow  and  tortuous  streets,  with  a  few  curi- 
ous old  houses,"  I  continue  to  quote  ;  "  there  is  a 
castle,  of  which  the  exterior  is  most  extraordinary, 
and  there  is  a  cathedral  of  moderate  interest."  It 
is  fair  to  say  that  the  Chateau  d' Angers  is  by 
itself  worth  a  pilgrimage  ;  the  only  drawback  is 
that  you  have  seen  it  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 
You  cannot  do  more  than  look  at  it,  and  one  good 
look  does  your  business.  It  has  no  beauty,  no 
grace,  no  detail,  nothing  that  charms  or  detains 
you  ;  it  is  simply  very  old  and  very  big  —  so  big 
and  so  old  that  this  simple  impression  is  enough, 
and  it  takes  its  place  in  your  recollections  as  a 
perfect  specimen  of  a  superannuated  stronghold. 
It  stands  at  one  end  of  the  town,  surrounded  by 
a  huge,  deep  moat,  which  originally  contained  the 
waters  of  the  Maine,  now  divided  from  it  by  a 
quay.    The  water-front  of  Angers  is  poor  —  want- 


132     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

ing  in  color  and  in  movement ;  and  there  is  always 
an  effect  of  perversity  in  a  town  lying  near  a  great 
river  and  yet  not  upon  it.  The  Loire  is  a  few 
miles  off ;  but  Angers  contents  itself  with  a  meagre 
affluent  of  that  stream.  The  effect  was  naturally 
much  better  when  the  vast  dark  bulk  of  the  castle, 
with  its  seventeen  prodigious  towers,  rose  out  of 
the  protecting  flood.  These  towers  are  of  tre- 
mendous girth  and  solidity ;  they  are  encircled 
with  great  bands,  or  hoops,  of  white  stone,  and 
are  much  enlarged  at  the  base.  Between  them 
hang  high  curtains  of  infinitely  old-looking  ma- 
sonry, apparently  a  dense  conglomeration  of  slate, 
the  material  of  which  the  town  was  originally 
built  (thanks  to  rich  quarries  in  the  neighborhood), 
and  to  which  it  owed  its  appellation  of  the  Black. 
There  are  no  windows,  no  apertures,  and  to-day 
no  battlements  nor  roofs.  These  accessories  were 
removed  by  Henry  III.,  so  that,  in  spite  of  its 
grimness  and  blackness,  the  place  has  not  even 
the  interest  of  looking  like  a  prison ;  it  being,  as  I 
suppose,  the  essence  of  a  prison  not  to  be  open 
to  the  sky.  The  only  features  of  the  enormous 
structure  are  the  blank,  sombre  stretches  and  pro- 
trusions of  wall,  the  effect  of  which,  on  so  large  a 
scale,  is  strange  and  striking.  Begun  by  Philip 
Augustus  and  terminated  by  St.  Louis,  the  Cha- 
teau d'Angers  has  of  course  a  great  deal  of  his- 


ANGERS  133 

tory.  The  luckless  Fouquet,  the  extravagant  min- 
ister of  finance  of  Louis  XIV.,  whose  fall  from 
the  heights  of  grandeur  was  so  sudden  and  com- 
plete, was  confined  here  in  1661,  just  after  his 
arrest,  which  had  taken  place  at  Nantes.  Here, 
also.  Huguenots  and  Vendeans  suffered  effective 
captivity. 

I  walked  round  the  parapet  which  protects  the 
outer  edge  of  the  moat  (it  is  all  up  hill,  and  the 
moat  deepens  and  deepens),  till  I  came  to  the  en- 
trance which  faces  the  town  and  which  is  as  bare 
and  strong  as  the  rest.  The  concierge  took  me 
into  the  court ;  but  there  was  nothing  to  see.  The 
place  is  used  as  a  magazine  of  ammunition,  and 
the  yard  contains  a  multitude  of  ugly  buildings. 
The  only  thing  to  do  is  to  walk  round  the  bastions 
for  the  view ;  but  at  the  moment  of  my  visit  the 
weather  was  thick,  and  the  bastions  began  and 
ended  with  themselves.  So  I  came  out  and  took 
another  look  at  the  big,  black  exterior,  buttressed 
with  white-ribbed  towers,  and  perceived  that  a 
desperate  sketcher  might  extract  a  picture  from 
it,  especially  if  he  were  to  bring  in,  as  they  say, 
the  little  black  bronze  statue  of  the  good  King 
Rene  (a  weak  production  of  David  d'Angers), 
which,  standing  within  sight,  ornaments  the  mel- 
ancholy faubourg.  He  would  do  much  better,  how- 
ever, with  the  very  striking  old  timbered  house  (I 


134     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

suppose  of  the  fifteenth  century)  which  is  called  the 
Maison  d'Adam,  and  is  easily  the  first  specimen  at 
Angers  of  the  domestic  architecture  of  the  past. 
This  admirable  house,  in  the  centre  of  the  town, 
gabled,  elaborately  timbered  and  much  restored, 
is  a  really  imposing  monument.  The  basement  is 
occupied  by  a  linen-draper  who  flourishes  under 
the  auspicious  sign  of  the  Mere  de  Famille  ;  and 
above  his  shop  the  tall  front  rises  in  five  overhang- 
ing stories.  As  the  house  occupies  the  angle  of  a 
little  place,  this  front  is  double,  and  the  black 
beams  and  wooden  supports,  displayed  over  a 
large  surface  and  carved  and  interlaced,  have  a 
high  picturesqueness.  The  Maison  d'Adam  is 
quite  in  the  grand  style,  and  I  am  sorry  to  say 
I  failed  to  learn  what  history  attaches  to  its  name. 
If  I  spoke  just  above  of  the  cathedral  as  "  moder- 
ate," I  suppose  I  should  beg  its  pardon  ;  for  this 
serious  charge  was  probably  prompted  by  the  fact 
that  it  consists  only  of  a  nave,  without  side  aisles. 
A  little  reflection  now  convinces  me  that  such  a 
form  is  a  distinction  ;  and,  indeed,  I  find  it  men- 
tioned, rather  inconsistently,  in  my  note-book,  a 
little  further  on,  as  "extremely  simple  and  grand." 
The  nave  is  spoken  of  in  the  same  volume  as 
"big,  serious,  and  Gothic,"  though  the  choir  and 
transepts  are  noted  as  very  shallow.  But  it  is  not 
denied  that  the  air  of  the  whole  thing  is  original 


OLD   TIMBERED    HOUSES,   ANGERS 


ANGERS  135 

and  striking ;  and  it  would  therefore  appear,  after 
all,  that  the  cathedral  of  Angers,  built  during  the 
twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries,  is  a  sufficiently 
honorable  church  ;  the  more  that  its  high  west 
front,  adorned  with  a  very  primitive  Gothic  portal, 
supports  two  elegant  tapering  spires,  between 
which,  unfortunately,  an  ugly  modern  pavilion  has 
been  inserted. 

I  remember  nothing  else  at  Angers  but  the 
curious  old  Cafe  Serin,  where,  after  I  had  had  my 
dinner  at  the  inn,  I  went  and  waited  for  the  train 
which,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  was  to  con- 
vey me,  in  a  couple  of  hours,  to  Nantes  —  an 
establishment  remarkable  for  its  great  size  and  its 
air  of  tarnished  splendor,  its  brown  gilding  and 
smoky  frescoes,  as  also  for  the  fact  that  it  was 
hidden  away  on  the  second  floor  of  an  unassuming 
house  in  an  unilluminated  street.  It  hardly  seemed 
a  place  where  you  would  drop  in ;  but  when  once 
you  had  found  it,  it  presented  itself,  with  the 
cathedral,  the  castle  and  the  Maison  d'Adam,  as 
one  of  the  historical  monuments  of  Angers. 


XV 

NANTES 

IF  I  spent  two  nights  at  Nantes,  ft  was  for 
reasons  of  convenience  rather  than  of  senti- 
ment ;  though  indeed  I  spent  them  in  a  big  circu- 
lar room  which  had  a  stately,  lofty,  last-century 
look  —  a  look  that  consoled  me  a  little  for  the 
whole  place  being  dirty.  The  high,  old-fashioned 
inn  (it  had  a  huge  windy  porte-cochtre,  and  you 
climbed  a  vast  black  stone  staircase  to  get  to  your 
room)  looked  out  on  a  dull  square,  surrounded 
with  other  tall  houses,  and  occupied  on  one  side 
by  the  theatre,  a  pompous  building  decorated  with 
columns  and  statues  of  the  muses.  Nantes  belongs 
to  the  class  of  towns  which  are  always  spoken  of 
as  "  fine,"  and  its  position  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Loire  gives  it,  I  believe,  much  commercial  move- 
ment. It  is  a  spacious,  rather  regular  city,  look- 
ing, in  the  parts  that  I  traversed,  neither  very 
fresh  nor  very  venerable.  It  derives  its  principal 
character  from  the  handsome  quays  on  the  Loire, 
which  are  overhung  with  tall  eighteenth-century 
houses  (very  numerous,  too,  in  the  other  streets)  — 


NANTES  137 

houses  with  big  entresols  marked  by  arched  win- 
dows, classic  pediments,  balcony-rails  of  fine  old 
iron-work.  These  features  exist  in  still  better 
form  at  Bordeaux;  but,  putting  Bordeaux  aside, 
Nantes  is  quite  architectural.  The  view  up  and 
down  the  quays  has  the  cool,  neutral  tone  of  color 
that  one  finds  so  often  in  French  water-side  places 
—  the  bright  grayness  which  is  the  tone  of  French 
landscape  art.  The  whole  city  has  rather  a  grand, 
or  at  least  an  eminently  well-established  air.  Dur- 
ing a  day  passed  in  it,  of  course  I  had  time  to  go 
to  the  Musee ;  the  more  so  that  I  have  a  weak- 
ness for  provincial  museums^ a  sentiment  that 
depends  but  little  on  the  quality  of  the  collection. 
The  pictures  may  be  bad,  but  the  place  is  often 
curious ;  and  indeed  from  bad  pictures,  in  certain 
moods  of  the  mind,  there  is  a  degree  of  entertain- 
ment to  be  derived.  If  they  are  tolerably  old  they 
are  often  touching ;  but  they  must  have  a  relative 
antiquity,  for  I  confess  I  can  do  nothing  with 
works  of  art  of  which  the  badness  is  of  recent 
origin.  The  cool,  still,  empty  chambers  in  which 
indifferent  collections  are  apt  to  be  preserved,  th« 
red  brick  tiles,  the  diffused  light,  the  musty  odor, 
the  mementos  around  you  of  dead  fashions,  the 
snuffy  custodian  in  a  black  skull  cap  who  pulls 
aside  a  faded  curtain  to  show  you  the  lustreless 
gem  of  the  museum  —  these  things  have  a  mild 


138     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

historical  quality,  and  the  sallow  canvases  after  all 
illustrate  something.  Many  of  those  in  the  museum 
of  Nantes  illustrate  the  taste  of  a  successful  war- 
rior ;  having  been  bequeathed  to  the  city  by  Na- 
poleon's marshal,  Clarke  (created  Due  de  Feltre). 
In  addition  to  these  there  is  the  usual  number  of 
specimens  of  the  contemporary  French  school, 
culled  from  the  annual  Salons  and  presented  to 
the  museum  by  the  State.  Wherever  the  traveler 
goes,  in  France,  he  is  reminded  of  this  very  honor- 
able practice  —  the  purchase  by  the  Government 
of  a  certain  number  of  "pictures  of  the  year," 
which  are  presently  distributed  in  the  provinces. 
Governments  succeed  each  other  and  bid  for  suc- 
cess by  different  devices  ;  but  the  "  patronage  of 
art "  is  a  plank,  as  we  should  say  here,  in  every 
platform.  The  works  of  art  are  often  ill-selected 
—  there  is  an  official  taste  which  you  immediately 
recognize  —  but  the  custom  is  essentially  liberal, 
and  a  government  which  should  neglect  it  would 
be  felt  to  be  painfully  common.  The  only  thing 
in  this  particular  Mus6e  that  I  remember  is  a  fine 
portrait  of  a  woman  by  Ingres  —  very  flat  and 
Chinese,  but  with  an  interest  of  line  and  a  great 
deal  of  style. 

There  is  a  castle  at  Nantes  which  resembles  in 
some  degree  that  of  Angers,  but  has,  without, 
much  less  of  the  impressiveness  of  great  size,  and, 


NANTES  139 

within,  much  more  interest  of  detail.  The  court 
contains  the  remains  of  a  very  fine  piece  of  late 
Gothic  —  a  tall  elegant  building  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  The  chateau  is  naturally  not  wanting  in 
history.  It  was  the  residence  of  the  old  Dukes  of 
Brittany,  and  was  brought,  with  the  rest  of  the 
province,  by  the  Duchess  Anrie,  the  last  repre- 
sentative of  that  race,  as  her  dowry,  to  Charles 
VIII.  I  read  in  the  excellent  handbook  of  M. 
Joanne  that  it  has  been  visited  by  almost  every 
one  of  the  kings  of  France,  from  Louis  XI.  down- 
ward ;  and  also  that  it  has  served  as  a  place  of 
sojourn  less  voluntary  on  the  part  of  various  other 
distinguished  persons,  from  the  horrible  Marechal 
de  Retz,  who  in  the  fifteenth  century  was  executed 
at  Nantes  for  the  murder  of  a  couple  of  hundred 
young  children,  sacrificed  in  abominable  rites,  to 
the  ardent  Duchess  of  Berry,  mother  of  the  Count 
of  Chambord,  who  was  confined  there  for  a  few 
hours  in  1832,  just  after  her  arrest  in  a  neighbor- 
ing house.  I  looked  at  the  house  in  question  — 
you  may  see  it  from  the  platform  in  front  of  the 
chateau  —  and  tried  to  figure  to  myself  that  em- 
barrassing scene.  The  Duchess,  after  having 
unsuccessfully  raised  the  standard  of  revolt  (for 
the  exiled  Bourbons)  in  the  legitimist  Bretagne, 
and  being  "wanted,"  as  the  phrase  is,  by  the 
police  of  Louis  Philippe,  had  hidden  herself  in  a 


I40     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

small  but  loyal  house  at  Nantes,  where,  at  the 
end  of  five  months  of  seclusion,  she  was  betrayed, 
for  gold,  to  the  austere  M.  Guizot,  by  one  of  her 
servants,  an  Alsatian  Jew  named  Deutz.  For 
many  hours  before  her  capture  she  had  been 
compressed  into  an  interstice  behind  a  fireplace, 
and  by  the  time  she  was  drawn  forth  into  the  light 
she  had  been  ominously  scorched.  The  man  who 
showed  me  the  castle  indicated  also  another  his- 
toric spot,  a  house  with  little  tourelles  on  the  Ouai 
de  la  Fosse,  in  which  Henry  IV.  is  said  to  have 
signed  the  Edict  revoked  by  Louis  XIV.  I  am, 
however,  not  in  a  position  to  answer  for  this  ped- 
igree. 

There  is  another  point  in  the  history  of  the  fine 
old  houses  which  command  the  Loire,  of  which,  I 
suppose,  one  may  be  tolerably  sure ;  that  is  their 
having,  placid  as  they  stand  there  to-day,  looked 
down  on  the  horrors  of  the  Terror  of  1793,  the 
bloody  reign  of  the  monster  Carrier  and  his  infa- 
mous noyadcs.  The  most  hideous  episode  of  the 
Revolution  was  enacted  at  Nantes,  where  hun- 
dreds of  men  and  women,  tied  together  in  couples, 
were  set  afloat  upon  rafts  and  sunk  to  the  bottom 
of  the  Loire.  The  tall  eighteenth-century  house, 
full  of  the  air  noble,  in  France  always  reminds  me 
of  those  dreadful  years  —  of  the  street  scenes  of 
the  Revolution.     Superficially,  the  association  is 


NANTES  141 

incongruous,  for  nothing  could  be  more  formal  and 
decorous  than  the  patent  expression  of  these  eli- 
gible residences.  But  whenever  I  have  a  vision 
of  prisoners  bound  on  tumbrels  that  jolt  slowly  to 
the  scaffold,  of  heads  carried  on  pikes,  of  groups 
of  heated  citoyennes  shaking  their  fists  at  closed 
coach-windows,  I  see  in  the  background  the  well- 
ordered  features  of  the  architecture  of  the  period 
—  the  clear  gray  stone,  the  high  pilasters,  the 
arching  lines  of  the  entresol,  the  classic  pediment, 
the  slate-covered  attic.  There  is  not  much  archi- 
tecture at  Nantes  except  the  domestic.  The  cathe- 
dral, with  a  rough  west  front  and  stunted  towers, 
makes  no  impression  as  you  approach  it.  It  is 
true  that  it  does  its  best  to  recover  its  reputation 
as  soon  as  you  have  passed  the  threshold.  Begun 
in  1434  and  finished  about  the  end  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  as  I  discover  in  Murray,  it  has  a  magni- 
ficent nave,  not  of  great  length,  but  of  extraordi- 
nary height  and  lightness.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
has  no  choir  whatever.  There  is  much  entertain- 
ment in  France  in  seeing  what  a  cathedral  will 
take  upon  itself  to  possess  or  to  lack ;  for  it  is 
only  the  smaller  number  that  have  the  full  com- 
plement of  features.  Some  have  a  very  fine  nave 
and  no  choir ;  others  a  very  fine  choir  and  no 
nave.  Some  have  a  rich  outside  and  nothing 
within  ;  others  a  very  blank  face  and  a  very  glow- 


142     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

ing  heart.  There  are  a  hundred  possibilities  of 
poverty  and  wealth,  and  they  make  the  most  un- 
expected combinations. 

The  great  treasure  of  Nantes  is  the  two  noble 
sepulchral  monuments  which  occupy  either  tran- 
sept, and  one  of  which  has  (in  its  nobleness)  the 
rare  distinction  of  being  a  production  of  our  own 
time.  On  the  south  side  stands  the  tomb  of 
Francis  II.,  the  last  of  the  Dukes  of  Brittany,  and 
of  his  second  wife,  Margaret  of  Foix,  erected  in 
1507  by  their  daughter  Anne,  whom  we  have  en- 
countered already  at  the  Chateau  de  Nantes,  where 
she  was  born ;  at  Langeais,  where  she  married 
her  first  husband ;  at  Amboise,  where  she  lost 
him ;  at  Blois,  where  she  married  her  second,  the 
"good"  Louis  XII.,  who  divorced  an  impeccable 
spouse  to  make  room  for  her,  and  where  she  her- 
self died.  Transferred  to  the  cathedral  from  a 
demolished  convent,  this  monument,  the  master- 
piece of  Michel  Colomb,  author  of  the  charming 
tomb  of  the  children  of  Charles  VIII.  and  the 
aforesaid  Anne,  which  we  admired  at  Saint  Gatien 
of  Tours,  is  one  of  the  most  brilliant  works  of  the 
French  Renaissance.  It  has  a  splendid  effect  and 
is  in  perfect  preservation.  A  great  table  of  black 
marble  supports  the  reclining  figures  of  the  duke 
and  duchess,  who  lie  there  peacefully  and  majes- 
tically, in  their  robes  and  crowns,  with  their  heads 
each  on  a  cushion,  the  pair  of  which  are  supported 


NANTES  143 

from  behind  by  three  charming  little  kneeling 
angels ;  at  the  foot  of  the  quiet  couple  are  a  lion 
and  a  greyhound,  with  heraldic  devices.  At  each 
of  the  angles  of  the  table  is  a  large  figure  in  white 
,  marble  of  a  woman  elaborately  dressed,  with  a 
symbolic  meaning,  and  these  figures,  with  their 
contemporary  faces  and  clothes,  which  give  them 
the  air  of  realistic  portraits,  are  truthful  and  living, 
if  not  remarkably  beautiful.  Round  the  sides  of 
the  tomb  are  small  images  of  the  apostles.  There 
is  a  kind  of  masculine  completeness  in  the  work, 
and  a  certain  robustness  of  taste. 

In  nothing  were  the  sculptors  of  the  Renais- 
sance more  fortunate  than  in  being  in  advance  of 
us  with  their  tombs  :  they  have  left  us  nothing 
to  say  in  regard  to  the  great  final  contrast  —  the 
contrast  between  the  immobility  of  death  and  the 
trappings  and  honors  that  survive.  They  ex- 
pressed in  every  way  in  which  it  was  possible  to 
express  it  the  solemnity  of  their  conviction  that 
the  marble  image  was  a  part  of  the  personal  great- 
ness of  the  defunct,  and  the  protection,  the  re- 
demption, of  his  memory.  A  modern  tomb,  in 
comparison,  is  a  skeptical  affair  ;  it  insists  too  little 
on  the  honors.  I  say  this  in  the  face  of  the  fact 
that  one  has  only  to  step  across  the  cathedral  of 
Nantes  to  stand  in  the  presence  of  one  of  the 
purest  and  most  touching  of  modern  tombs. 
Catholic  Brittany  has  erected  in  the  opposite  tran- 


144     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

sept  a  monument  to  one  of  the  most  devoted  of 
her  sons,  General  de  Lamoriciere,  the  defender  of 
the  Pope,  the  vanquished  of  Castelfidardo.  This 
noble  work,  from  the  hand  of  Paul  Dubois,  one 
of  the  most  interesting  of  that  new  generation  of 
sculptors  who  have  revived  in  PVance  an  art  of 
which  our  over-dressed  century  had  begun  to  de- 
spair, has  every  merit  but  the  absence  of  a  certain 
prime  feeling.  It  is  the  echo  of  an  earlier  tune  — 
an  echo  with  a  beautiful  cadence.  Under  a  Renais- 
sance canopy  of  white  marble  elaborately  worked 
with  arabesques  and  cherubs,  in  a  relief  so  low 
that  it  gives  the  work  a  certain  look  of  being 
softened  and  worn  by  time,  lies  the  body  of  the 
Breton  soldier  with  a  crucifix  clasped  to  his  breast 
and  a  shroud  thrown  over  his  body.  At  each  of 
the  angles  sits  a  figure  in  bronze,  the  two  best  of 
which,  representing  Charity  and  Military  Courage, 
had  given  me  extraordinary  pleasure  when  they 
were  exhibited  (in  the  clay)  in  the  Salon  of  1876. 
They  are  admirably  cast  and  not  less  admirably 
conceived  :  the  one  a  serene,  robust  young  mother, 
beautiful  in  line  and  attitude  ;  the  other  a  lean  and 
vigilant  young  man,  in  a  helmet  that  overshadows 
his  serious  eyes,  resting  an  outstretched  arm,  an 
admirable  military  member,  upon  the  hilt  of  a 
sword.  These  figures  contain  abundant  assurance 
that  M.  Paul  Dubois  has  been  attentive  to  Michael 


NANTES  145 

Angelo,  whom  we  have  all  heard  called  a  splendid 
example  and  a  bad  model.  The  visor-shadowed 
face  of  his  warrior  is  more  or  less  a  reminiscence 
of  the  figure  on  the  tomb  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  at 
Florence ;  but  it  is  doubtless  none  the  worse  for 
that.  The  interest  of  the  work  of  Paul  Dubois  is 
its  peculiar  seriousness,  a  kind  of  moral  good  faith 
which  is  not  the  commonest  feature  of  French  art, 
and  which,  united  as  it  is  in  this  case  with  exceed- 
ing knowledge  and  a  remarkable  sense  of  form, 
produces  an  impression  of  deep  refinement.  The 
whole  monument  is  a  proof  of  exquisitely  careful 
study  ;  but  I  am  not  sure  that  this  impression  on 
the  part  of  the  spectator  is  the  happiest  possible. 
It  explains  much  of  the  great  beauty,  and  it  also 
explains  perhaps  a  little  of  the  slight  pedantry. 
That  word,  however,  is  scarcely  in  place  ;  I  only 
mean  that  M.  Dubois  has  made  a  visible  effort, 
which  has  visibly  triumphed.  Simplicity  is  not 
always  strength,  and  our  complicated  modern 
genius  contains  treasures  of  intention.  This 
fathomless  modern  element  is  an  immense  charm 
on  the  part  of  M.  Paul  Dubois.  I  am  lost  in 
admiration  of  the  deep  aesthetic  experience,  the 
enlightenment  of  taste,  revealed  by  such  work. 
After  that  I  only  hope  that  Giuseppe  Garibaldi 
may  have  somewhere  or  other  some  commemora- 
tion as  distinguished. 


XVI 


LA   ROCHELLE 


TO  go  from  Nantes  to  La  Rochelle  you  travel 
straight  southward  across  the  historic 
bocage  of  La  Vendue,  the  home  of  royalist  bush- 
fighting.  The  country,  which  is  exceedingly  pretty, 
bristles  with  copses,  orchards,  hedges,  and  with 
trees  more  spreading  and  sturdy  than  the  traveler 
is  apt  to  find  the  feathery  foliage  of  France.  It  is 
true  that  as  I  proceeded  it  flattened  out  a  good 
deal,  so  that  for  an  hour  there  was  a  vast  feature- 
less plain,  which  offered  me  little  entertainment 
beyond  the  general  impression  that  I  was  ap- 
proaching the  Bay  of  Biscay  (from  which,  in  real- 
ity, I  was  yet  far  distant).     As  we  drew  near  La 


LA    ROCHELLE  147 

Rochelle,  however,  the  prospect  brightened  con- 
siderably, and  the  railway  kept  its  course  beside  a 
charming  little  canal,  or  canalized  river,  bordered 
with  trees  and  with  small,  neat,  bright-colored  and 
yet  old-fashioned  cottages  and  villas,  which  stood 
back,  on^ihe  further  side,  behind  small  gardens, 
hedges,  painted  palings,  patches  of  turf.  The 
whole  effect  was  Dutch  and  delightful ;  and  in 
being  delightful,  though  not  in  being  Dutch,  it 
prepared  me  for  the  charms  of  La  Rochelle,  which 
from  the  moment  I  entered  it  I  perceived  to  be  a 
fascinating  little  town,  a  quite  original  mixture  of 
brightness  and  dullness.  Part  of  its  brightness 
comes  from  its  being  extraordinarily  clean  —  in 
which,  after  all,  it  is  Dutch  ;  a  virtue  not  particu- 
larly noticeable  at  Bourges,  Le  Mans,  and  Angers. 
Whenever  I  go  southward,  if  it  be  only  twenty 
miles,  I  begin  to  look  out  for  the  south,  prepared 
as  I  am  to  find  the  careless  grace  of  those  lati- 
tudes even  in  things  of  which  it  may  be  said  that 
they  may  be  south  of  something,  but  are  not 
southern.  To  go  from  Boston  to  New  York  (in 
this  state  of  mind)  is  almost  as  soft  a  sensation  as 
descending  the  Italian  side  of  the  Alps  ;  and  to  go 
from  New  York  to  Philadelphia  is  to  enter  a  zone 
of  tropical  luxuriance  and  warmth.  Given  this 
absurd  disposition,  I  could  not  fail  to  flatter  my- 
self, on  reaching  La  Rochelle,  that  I  was  already 


148     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

in  the  Midi,  and  to  perceive  in  everything,  in  the 
language  of  the  country,  the  caractcre  meridional. 
Really  a  great  many  things  had  a  hint  of  it.  For 
that  matter  it  seems  to  me  that  to  arrive  in  the 
south  at  a  bound  —  to  wake  up  there,  as  it  were  — 
would  be  a  very  imperfect  pleasure.  The  full 
pleasure  is  to  approach  by  stages  and  gradations ; 
to  observe  the  successive  shades  of  difference  by 
which  it  ceases  to  be  the  north.  These  shades 
are  exceedingly  fine,  but  your  true  south-lover  has 
an  eye  for  them  all.  If  he  perceives  them  at  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  —  we  imagine  him  boldly 
as  liberated  from  Boston  —  how  could  he  fail  to 
perceive  them  at  La  Rochelle  .^  The  streets  of 
this  dear  little  city  are  lined  with  arcades  —  good, 
big,  straddling  arcades  of  stone,  such  as  befit  a 
land  of  hot  summers,  and  which  recalled  to  me, 
not  to  go  further,  the  dusky  porticoes  of  Bayonne. 
It  contains,  moreover,  a  great  ^id^  place  d'armes, 
which  looked  for  all  the  world  like  the  piazza 
of  some  dead  Italian  town,  empty,  sunny,  grass- 
grown,  with  a  row  of  yellow  houses  overhanging 
it,  an  unfrequented  caf^  with  a  striped  awning,  a 
tall,  cold,  florid,  uninteresting  cathedral  of  the 
eighteenth  century  on  one  side,  and  on  the  other 
a  shady  walk  which  forms  part  of  an  old  rampart. 
I  followed  this  walk  for  some  time,  under  the 
stunted  trees,  beside  the  grass-covered  bastions ; 


LA   ROCHELLE,    HOTEL   DE   VILLE   AND   ARCADES 


LA   ROCHELLE  149 

it  is  very  charming,  winding  and  wandering, 
always  with  trees.  Beneath  the  rampart  is  a  tidal 
river,  and  on  the  other  side,  for  a  long  distance, 
the  mossy  walls  of  the  immense  garden  of  a  semi- 
nary. Three  hundred  years  ago.  La  Rochelle  was 
the  great  French  stronghold  of  Protestantism ; 
but  to-day  it  appears  to  be  a  nursery  of  Papists. 

The  walk  upon  the  rampart  led  me  round  to 
one  of  the  gates  of  the  town,  where  I  found  some 
small  modern  fortifications  and  sundry  red-legged 
soldiers,  and,  beyond  the  fortifications,  another 
shady  walk  —  a  maily  as  the  French  say,  as  well 
as  a  champ  de  maitoeiivre  —  on  which  latter  ex- 
panse the  poor  little  red-legs  were  doing  their 
exercise.  It  was  all  very  quiet  and  very  pictur- 
esque, rather  in  miniature  ;  and  at  once  very  tidy 
and  a  little  out  of  repair.  This,  however,  was  but 
a  meagre  back-view  of  La  Rochelle,  or  poor  side- 
view  at  best.  There  are  other  gates  than  the 
small  fortified  aperture  just  mentioned  ;  one  of 
them,  an  old  gray  arch  beneath  a  fine  clock-tower, 
I  had  passed  through  on  my  way  from  the  station. 
This  substantial  Tour  de  I'Horloge  separates  the 
town  proper  from  the  port;  for  beyond  the  old 
gray  arch  the  place  presents  its  bright,  expressive 
little  face  to  the  sea.  I  had  a  charming  walk 
about  the  harbor  and  along  the  stone  piers  and 
sea-walls  that  shut  it  in.     This  indeed,  to  take 


150    A   LITTLE  TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

things  in  their  order,  was  after  I  had  had  my  break- 
fast (which  I  took  on  arriving)  and  after  I  had  been 
to  the  hotel  de  ville.  The  inn  had  a  long  narrow 
garden  behind  it,  with  some  very  tall  trees ;  and 
passing  through  this  garden  to  a  dim  and  secluded 
salle  a  manger^  buried  in  the  heavy  shade,  I  had, 
while  I  sat  at  my  repast,  a  feeling  of  seclusion 
which  amounted  almost  to  a  sense  of  incarceration. 
I  lost  this  sense,  however,  after  I  had  paid  my 
bill,  and  went  out  to  look  for  traces  of  the  famous 
siege,  which  is  the  principal  title  of  La  Rochelle 
to  renown.  I  had  come  thither  partly  because  I 
thought  it  would  be  interesting  to  stand  for  a  few 
moments  in  so  gallant  a  spot,  and  partly  because, 
I  confess,  I  had  a  curiosity  to  see  what  had  been 
the  starting-point  of  the  Huguenot  emigrants  who 
founded  the  town  of  New  Rochelle  in  the  State 
of  New  York,  a  place  in  which  I  had  passed  sun- 
dry memorable  hours.  It  was  strange  to  think, 
as  I  strolled  through  the  peaceful  little  port,  that 
these  quiet  waters,  during  the  wars  of  religion, 
had  swelled  with  a  formidable  naval  power.  The 
Rochelais  had  fleets  and  admirals,  and  their  stout 
little  Protestant  bottoms  carried  defiance  up  and 
down. 

To  say  that  I  found  any  traces  of  the  siege 
would  be  to  misrepresent  the  taste  for  vivid  white- 
wash by  which  La  Rochelle  is  distinguished  to- 


LA   ROCHELLE.   THE   TOUR   DE   L'HOKLOGE 


LA   ROCHELLE  151 

day.  The  only  trace  is  the  dent  in  the  marble 
top  of  the  table  on  which,  in  the  hotel  de  ville^ 
Jean  Guiton,  the  mayor  of  the  city,  brought  down 
his  dagger  with  an  oath  when  in  1628  the  vessels 
and  regiments  of  Richelieu  closed  about  it  on  sea 
and  land.  This  terrible  functionary  was  the  soul 
of  the  resistance ;  he  held  out  from  February  to 
October  in  the  midst  of  pestilence  and  famine. 
The  whole  episode  has  a  brilliant  place  among  the 
sieges  of  history ;  it  has  been  related  a  hundred 
times,  and  I  may  only  glance  at  it  and  pass.  I 
limit  my  ambition  in  these  light  pages  to  speaking 
of  those  things  of  which  I  have  personally  received 
an  impression ;  and  I  have  no  such  impression  of 
the  defense  of  La  Rochelle.  The  hotel  de  ville  is 
a  pretty  little  building  in  the  style  of  the  Renais- 
sance of  Francis  I.  ;  but  it  has  left  much  of  its 
interest  in  the  hands  of  the  restorers.  It  has 
been  "done  up"  without  mercy;  its  natural  place 
would  be  at  Rochelle  the  New.  A  sort  of  battle- 
mented  curtain,  flanked  with  turrets,  divides  it 
from  the  street  and  contains  a  low  door  (a  low 
door  in  a  high  wall  is  always  felicitous),  which 
admits  you  to  an  inner  court,  where  you  discover 
the  face  of  the  building.  It  has  statues  set  into 
it  and  is  raised  upon  a  very  low  and  very  deep 
arcade.  The  principal  function  of  the  deferential 
old  portress  who  conducts  you  over  the  place  is 


152     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

to  call  your  attention  to  the  indented  table  of  Jean 
Guiton ;  but  she  shows  you  other  objects  of  in- 
terest besides.  The  interior  is  absolutely  new 
and  extremely  sumptuous,  abounding  in  tapestries, 
upholstery,  morocco,  velvet,  satin.  This  is  espe- 
cially the  case  with  a  really  beautiful  grande  sallc, 
where,  surrounded  with  the  most  expensive  up- 
holstery, the  mayor  holds  his  official  receptions. 
(So  at  least  said  my  worthy  portress.)  The  mayors 
of  La  Rochelle  appear  to  have  changed  a  good 
deal  since  the  days  of  the  grim  Guiton  ;  but  these 
evidences  of  municipal  splendor  are  interesting  for 
the  light  they  throw  on  French  manners.  Imagine 
the  mayor  of  an  English  or  an  American  town  of 
twenty  thousand  inhabitants  holding  magisterial 
soirees  in  the  town  hall !  The  said  gra7ide  sallcy 
which  is  unchanged  in  form  and  in  its  larger  fea- 
tures, is,  I  believe,  the  room  in  which  the  Roche- 
lais  debated  as  to  whether  they  should  shut  them- 
selves up,  and  decided  in  the  affirmative.  The 
table  and  chair  of  Jean  Guiton  have  been  restored, 
like  everything  else,  and  are  very  elegant  and  co- 
quettish pieces  of  furniture  —  incongruous  relics 
of  a  season  of  starvation  and  blood.  I  believe 
that  Protestantism  is  somewhat  shrunken  to-day 
at  La  Rochelle  and  has  taken  refuge  mainly  in 
the  haute  soci^t^  and  in  a  single  place  of  worship. 
There  was  nothing  particular  to  remind  me  of  its 


LA   ROCHELLE  153 

supposed  austerity  as,  after  leaving  the  hotel  de 
ville,  I  walked  along  the  empty  porticoes  and  out 
of  the  Tour  de  I'Horloge,  which  I  have  already 
mentioned.  If  I  stopped  and  looked  up  at  this 
venerable  monument  it  was  not  to  ascertain  the 
hour,  for  I  foresaw  that  I  should  have  more  time 
at  La  Rochelle  than  I  knew  what  to  do  with ;  but 
because  its  high,  gray,  weather-beaten  face  was  an 
obvious  subject  for  a  sketch. 

The  little  port,  which  has  two'  basins  and  is 
accessible  only  to  vessels  of  light  tonnage,  had  a 
certain  gayety  and  as  much  local  color  as  you 
please.  Fisher-folk  of  picturesque  type  were 
strolling  about,  most  of  them  Bretons ;  several  of 
the  men  with  handsome,  simple  faces,  not  at  all 
brutal,  and  with  a  splendid  brown ness  —  the 
golden-brown  color  on  cheek  and  beard  that  you 
see  on  an  old  Venetian  sail.  It  was  a  squally, 
showery  day,  with  sudden  drizzles  of  sunshine ; 
rows  of  rich-toned  fishing-smacks  were  drawn  up 
along  the  quays.  The  harbor  is  effective  to  the 
eye  by  reason  of  three  battered  old  towers  which, 
at  different  points,  overhang  it  and  look  infinitely 
weather-washed  and  sea-silvered.  The  most  strik- 
ing of  these,  the  Tour  de  la  Lanterne,  is  a  big 
gray  mass  of  the  fifteenth  century,  flanked  with 
turrets  and  crowned  with  a  Gothic  steeple.  I 
found  it  was  called  by  the  people  of  the  place  the 


154     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

Tour  des  Quatre  Sergents,  though  I  know  not 
what  connection  it  has  with  the  touching  history 
of  the  four  young  sergeants  of  the  garrison  of  La 
Rochelle  who  were  arrested  in  1821  as  conspira- 
tors against  the  government  of  the  Bourbons,  and 
executed,  amid  general  indignation,  in  Paris  in  the 
following  year.  The  qu§iint  little  walk,  with  its 
label  of  Rue  sur  les  Murs,  to  which  one  ascends 
from  beside  the  Grosse  Horloge,  leads  to  this 
curious  Tour  de  la  Lanterne  and  passes  under  it. 
This  walk  has  the  top  of  the  old  town-wall,  towards 
the  sea,  for  a  parapet  on  one  side,  and  is  bordered 
on  the  other  with  decent  but  irregular  little  ten- 
ements of  fishermen,  where  brown  old  women, 
whose  caps  are  as  white  as  if  they  were  painted, 
seem  chiefly  in  possession.  In  this  direction  there 
is  a  very  pretty  stretch  of  shore,  out  of  the  town, 
through  the  fortifications  (which  are  Vauban's,  by 
the  way) ;  through,  also,  a  diminutive  public  gar- 
den or  straggling  shrubbery  which  edges  the  water 
and  carries  its  stunted  verdure  as  far  as  a  big 
Establissement  des  Bains.  It  was  too  late  in  the 
year  to  bathe,  and  the  Establissement  had  the 
bankrupt  aspect  which  belongs  to  such  places  out 
of  the  season ;  so  I  turned  my  back  upon  it  and 
gained,  by  a  circuit  in  the  course  of  which  there 
were  sundry  water-side  items  to  observe,  the  other 
side  of  the  cheery  little  port,  where  there  is  a  long 


LA   ROCHELLE  155 

breakwater  and  a  still  longer  sea-wall,  on  which  I 
walked  awhile,  to  inhale  the  strong,  salt  breath  of 
the  Bay  of  Biscay.  La  Rochelle  serves,  in  the 
months  of  July  and  August,  as  a  station  de  bains 
for  a  modest  provincial  society  ;  and,  putting  aside 
the  question  of  inns,  it  must  be  charming  on  sum- 
mer afternoons. 


XVII 
POITIERS 

IT  is  an  injustice  to  Poitiers  to  approach  her  by 
night,  as  I  did  some  three  hours  after  leaving 
La  Rochelle ;  for  what  Poitiers  has  of  best,  as  they 
would  say  at  Poitiers,  is  the  appearance  she  pre- 
sents to  the  arriving  stranger  who  puts  his  head 
out  of  the  window  of  the  train.  I  gazed  into  the 
gloom  from  such  an  aperture  before  we  got  into  the 
station,  for  I  remembered  the  impression  received 
on  another  occasion  ;  but  I  saw  nothing  save  the 
universal  night,  spotted  here  and  there  with  an 
ugly  railway  lanTp.  It  was  only  as  I  departed,  the 
following  day,  that  I  assured  myself  that  Poitiers 
still  makes  something  of  the  figure  she  ought  on 
the  summit  of  her  considerable  hill.  I  have  a 
kindness  for  any  little  group  of  towers,  any  cluster 
of  roofs  and  chimneys,  that  lift  themselves  from 
an  eminence  over  which  a  long  road  ascends  in 
zigzags  ;  such  a  picture  creates  for  the  moment  a 
presumption  that  you  are  in  Italy,  and  even  leads 
you  to  believe  that  if  you  mount  the  winding  road 
you  will  come  to  an  old  town-wall,  an  expanse  of 


POITIERS  157 

creviced  brovvnness,  and  pass  under  a  gateway  sur- 
mounted by  the  arms  of  a  mediaeval  despot.  Why 
I  should  find  it  a  pleasure  in  France  to  imagine 
myself  in  Italy,  is  more  than  I  can  say ;  the  illusion 
has  never  lasted  long  enough  to  be  analyzed. 
From  the  bottom  of  its  perch  Poitiers  looks  large 
and  high ;  and,  indeed,  the  evening  I  reached  it, 
the  interminable  climb  of  the  omnibus  of  the  hotel 
I  had  selected,  which  I  found  at  the  station, 
gave  me  the  measure  of  its  commanding  position. 
This  hotel,  ''magnifique  construction  ornee  de 
statues,"  as  the  Guide-Joanne,  usually  so  reticent, 
takes  the  trouble  to  announce,  has  an  omnibus,  and, 
I  suppose,  has  statues,  though  I  didn't  perceive 
them  ;  but  it  has  very  little  else  save  immemorial 
accumulations  of  dirt.  It  is  magnificent,  if  you 
will,  but  it  is  not  even  relatively  proper  ;  and  a 
dirty  inn  has  always  seemed  to  me  the  dirtiest  of 
human  things  —  it  has  so  many  opportunities  to 
betray  itself. 

Poitiers  covers  a  large  space  and  is  as  crooked 
and  straggling  as  you  please ;  but  these  advantages 
are  not  accompanied  with  any  very  salient  features 
or  any  great  wealth  of  architecture.  Although 
there  are  few  picturesque  houses,  however,  there 
are  two  or  three  curious  old  churches.  Notre 
Dame  la  Grande,  in  the  market-place,  a  small 
romanesque  structure  of  the  twelfth  century,  has 


158     A    LITTLE  TOUR   IN   FRANCi: 

a  most  interesting  and  venerable  exterior.  Com- 
posed, like  all  the  churches  of  Poitiers,  of  a  light 
brown  stone  with  a  yellowish  tinge,  it  is  covered 
with  primitive  but  ingenious  sculptures  and  is 
really  an  impressive  monument.  Within,  it  has 
lately  been  daubed  over  with  the  most  hideous 
decorative  painting  that  was  ever  inflicted  upon 
passive  pillars  and  indifferent  vaults.  This  bat- 
tered yet  coherent  little  Edifice  has  the  touching 
look  that  resides  in  everything  supremely  old  ;  it 
has  arrived  at  the  age  at  which  such  things  cease 
to  feel  the  years ;  the  waves  of  time  have  worn  its 
edges  to  a  kind  of  patient  dulness  ;  there  is  some- 
thing mild  and  smooth,  like  the  stillness,  the  deaf- 
ness, of  an  octogenarian,  even  in  its  rudeness  of 
ornament,  and  it  has  become  insensible  to  differ- 
ences of  a  century  or  two.  The  cathedral  inter- 
ested me  much  less  than  Our  Lady  the  Great, 
and  I  have  not  the  spirit  to  go  into  statistics  about 
it.  It  is  not  statistical  to  say  that  the  cathedral 
stands  halfway  down  the  hill  of  Poitiers,  in  a  quiet 
and  grass-grown  place^  with  an  approach  of  crooked 
lanes  and  blank  garden-walls,  and  that  its  most 
striking  dimension  is  the  width  of  its  facade. 
This  width  is  extraordinary,  but  it  fails,  somehow, 
to  give  nobleness  to  the  edifice,  which  looks  with-^ 
in  (Murray  makes  the  remark)  like  a  large  public 
hall.     There  are  a  nave  and  two  aisles,  the  latter 


5,1 


v*^ »' 


•*,r3^r„w>-^;^^5:^  7^ 


POITIERS  159 

about  as  high  as  the  nave ;  and  there  are  some 
very  fearful  modern  pictures,  which  you  may  see 
much  better  than  you  usually  see  those  specimens 
of  the  old  masters  that  lurk  in  glowing  side-chapels, 
there  being  no  fine  old  glass  to  diffuse  a  kindly 
gloom.  The  sacristan  of  the  cathedral  showed 
me  something  much  better  than  all  this  bright 
bareness ;  he  led  me  a  short  distance  out  of  it  to 
the  small  Temple  de  Saint-Jean,  which  is  the  most 
curious  object  at  Poitiers.  It  is  an  early  Christian 
chapel,  one  of  the  earliest  in  France;  originally, 
it  would  seem  —  that  is,  in  the  sixth  or  seventh 
century  —  a  baptistery,  but  converted  into  a 
church  while  the  Christian  era  was  still  compara- 
tively young.  The  Temple  de  Saint-Jean  is  there- 
fore a  monument  even  more  venerable  than  Notre 
Dame  la  Grande,  and  that  numbness  of  age  which 
I  imputed  to  Notre  Dame  ought  to  reside  in  still 
larger  measure  in  its  crude  and  colorless  little 
walls.  I  call  them  crude,  in  spite  of  their  having 
been  baked  through  by  the  centuries,  only  be- 
cause, although  certain  rude  arches  and  carvings 
are  let  into  them  and  they  are  surmounted  at 
either  end  with  a  small  gable,  they  have  (so  far  as 
I  can  remember)  little  fascination  of  surface. 
Notre  Dame  is  still  expressive,  still  pretends  to 
be  alive  ;  but  the  temple  has  delivered  its  message 
and  is  completely  at  rest.     It  retains  a  kind  of 


i6o     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

atrium,  on  the  level  of  the  street,  from  which  you 
descend  to  the  original  floor,  now  uncovered,  but 
buried  for  years  under  a  false  bottom.  A  semi- 
circular apse  was,  apparently  at  the  time  of  its 
conversion  into  a  church,  thrown  out  from  the  east 
wall.  In  the  middle  is  the  cavity  of  the  old  bap- 
tismal font.  The  walls  and  vaults  are  covered  with 
traces  of  extremely  archaic  frescoes,  attributed, 
I  believe,  to  the  twelfth  century.  These  vague, 
gaunt,  staring  fragments  of  figures  are,  to  a  certain 
extent,  a  reminder  of  some  of  the  early  Christian 
churches  in  Rome ;  they  even  faintly  recalled  to 
me  the  great  mosaics  of  Ravenna.  The  Temple 
de  Saint-Jean  has  neither  the  antiquity  nor  the 
completeness  of  those  extraordinary  monuments, 
nearly  the  most  impressive  in  Europe  ;  but,  as  one 
may  say,  it  is  very  well  for  Poitiers. 

Not  far  from  it,  in  a  lonely  corner  which  was 
animated  for  the  moment  by  the  vociferations  of 
several  old  women  who  were  selling  tapers,  pre- 
sumably for  the  occasion  of  a  particular  devotion, 
is  the  graceful  romanesque  church  erected  in  the 
twelfth  century  to  Saint  Radegonde  —  a  lady  who 
found  means  to  be  a  saint  even  in  the  capacity  of 
a  Merovingian  queen.  It  bears  a  general  resem- 
blance to  Notre  Dame  la  Grande  and,  as  I  remem- 
ber it,  is  corrugated  in  somewhat  the  same  manner 
with  porous-looking  carvings ;  but  I  confess  that 


POITIERS  i6i 

what  I  chiefly  recollect  is  the  row  of  old  women 
sitting  in  front  of  it,  each  with  a  tray  of  waxen 
tapers  in  her  lap,  and  upbraiding  me  for  my  neglect 
of  the  opportunity  to  offer  such  a  tribute  to  the 
saint.  I  know  not  whether  this  privilege  is  oc- 
casional or  constant ;  within  the  church  there  was 
no  appearance  of  a  festival,  and  I  see  that  the 
name-day  of  Saint  Radegonde  occurs  in  August, 
so  that  the  importunate  old  women  sit  there  al- 
ways perhaps  and  deprive  of  its  propriety  the  epi- 
thet I  just  applied  to  this  provincial  corner.  In 
spite  of  the  old  women,  however,  I  suspect  that 
the  place  is  lonely ;  and  indeed  it  is  perhaps  the 
old  women  who  have  made  the  desolation. 

The  lion  of  Poitiers  in  the  eyes  of  the  natives  is 
doubtless  the  Palais  de  Justice,  in  the  shadow  of 
which  the  statue-guarded  hotel,  just  mentioned, 
erects  itself;  and  the  gem  of  the  court-house, 
which  has  a  prosy  modern  front,  with  pillars  and 
a  high  flight  of  steps,  is  the  curious  salle  des  pas 
perdus,  or  central  hall,  out  of  which  the  different 
tribunals  open.  This  is  a  feature  of  every  French 
court-house  and  seems  the  result  of  a  conviction 
that  a  palace  of  justice  —  the  French  deal  in  much 
finer  names  than  we  —  should  be  in  some  degree 
palatial.  The  great  hall  at  Poitiers  has  a  long 
pedigree,  as  its  walls  date  back  to  the  twelfth 
century,  and  its  open  wooden  roof,  as  well  as  the 


i62     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

remarkable  trio  of  chimney-pieces  at  the  right  end 
of  the  room  as  you  enter,  to  the  fifteenth.  The 
three  tall  fireplaces,  side  by  side,  with  a  delicate 
gallery  running  along  the  top  of  them,  constitute 
the  originality  of  this  ancient  chamber,  and  make 
one  think  of  the  groups  that  must  formerly  have 
gathered  there  —  of  all  the  wet  boot-soles,  the 
trickling  doublets,  the  stiffened  fingers,  the  rheu- 
matic shanks,  that  must  have  been  presented  to 
such  an  incomparable  focus  of  heat.  To-day,  I 
am  afraid,  these  mighty  hearths  are  forever  cold  ; 
justice  is  probably  administered  with  the  aid  of  a 
modern  calorifire,  and  the  walls  of  the  palace  are 
perforated  with  regurgitating  tubes.  Behind  and 
above  the  gallery  that  surmounts  the  three  fire- 
places are  high  Gothic  windows,  the  tracery  of 
which  masks,  in  some  sort,  the  chimneys ;  and  in 
each  angle  of  this  and  of  the  room  to  the  right 
and  left  of  the  trio  of  chimneys  is  an  open-work 
spiral  staircase,  ascending  to  —  I  forget  where ; 
perhaps  to  the  roof  of  the  edifice.  The  whole  side 
of  the  salle  is  very  lordly  and  seems  to  express  an 
unstinted  hospitality,  to  extend  the  friendliest  of 
all  invitations,  to  bid  the  whole  world  come  and 
get  warm.  It  was  the  invention  of  John,  Duke  of 
Berry  and  Count  of  Poitou,  about  1395.  I  give 
this  information  on  the  authority  of  the  Guide- 
Joanne,  from  which  source  I  gather  much  other 


CHURCH   OF   SAINTE    RADEGONDE,    POITIERS 


POITIERS  163 

curious  learning ;  as,  for  instance,  that  it  was  in 
this  building,  when  it  had  surely  a  very  different 
front,  that  Charles  VII,  was  proclaimed  king  in 
1422 ;  and  that  here  Jeanne  Dare  was  subjected, 
in  1429,  to  the  inquisition  of  sundry  doctors  and 
matrons. 

The  most  charming  thing  at  Poitiers  is  simply 
the  Promenade  de  Blossac  —  a  small  public  garden 
at  one  end  of  the  flat  top  of  the  hill.  It  has  a 
happy  look  of  the  last  century  (having  been  ar- 
ranged at  that  period),  and  a  beautiful  sweep  of 
view  over  the  surrounding  country,  and  especially 
of  the  course  of  the  little  river  Clain,  which  winds 
about  a  part  of  the  base  of  the  big  mound  of  Poi- 
tiers. The  limit  of  this  dear  little  garden  is 
formed,  on  the  side  that  turns  away  from  the 
town,  by  the  rampart  erected  in  the  fourteenth 
century  and  by  its  big  semicircular  bastions.  This 
rampart,  of  great  length,  has  a  low  parapet ;  you 
look  over  it  at  the  charming  little  vegetable-gar- 
dens with  which  the  base  of  the  hill  appears  ex- 
clusively to  be  garnished.  The  whole  prospect  is 
delightful,  especially  the  details  of  the  part  just 
under  the  walls,  at  the  end  of  the  walk.  Here  the 
river  makes  a  shining  twist  which  a  painter  might 
have  invented,  and  the  side  of  the  hill  is  terraced 
into  several  hedges  —  a  sort  of  tangle  of  small 
blooming  patches  and  little  pavilions  with  peaked 


i64     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

roofs  and  green  shutters.  It  is  idle  to  attempt  to 
reproduce  all  this  in  words ;  it  should  be  repro- 
duced only  in  water-colors.  The  reader,  however, 
will  already  have  remarked  that  disparity  in  these 
ineffectual  pages,  which  are  pervaded  by  the  at- 
tempt to  sketch  without  a  palette  or  brushes.  He 
will  doubtless  also  be  struck  with  the  groveling 
vision  which,  on  such  a  spot  as  the  ramparts  of 
Poitiers,  peoples  itself  with  carrots  and  cabbages 
rather  than  with  images  of  the  Black  Prince  and 
the  captive  king.  I  am  not  sure  that  in  looking 
out  from  the  Promenade  de  Blossac  you  command 
the  old  battlefield ;  it  is  enough  that  it  was  not 
far  off  and  that  the  great  rout  of  Frenchmen 
poured  into  the  walls  of  Poitiers,  leaving  on  the 
ground  a  number  of  the  fallen  equal  to  the  little 
army  (eight  thousand)  of  the  invader.  I  did  think 
of  the  battle.  I  wondered,  rather  helplessly,  where 
it  had  taken  place ;  and  I  came  away  (as  the  reader 
will  see  from  the  preceding  sentence)  without  find- 
ing out.  This  indifference,  however,  was  a  result 
rather  of  a  general  dread  of  military  topography 
than  of  a  want  of  admiration  of  this  particular  vic- 
tory, which  I  have  always  supposed  to  be  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  on  record.  Indeed  I  should  be 
almost  ashamed,  and  very  much  at  a  loss,  to  say 
what  light  it  was  that  this  glorious  day  seemed  to 
me  to  have  left  forever  on  the  horizon,  and  why 


POITIERS  165 

the  very  name  of  the  place  had  always  caused  my 
blood  gently  to  tingle.  It  is  carrying  the  feeling 
of  race  to  quite  inscrutable  lengths  when  a  vague 
American  permits  himself  an  emotion  because 
more  than  five  centuries  ago,  on  French  soil,  one 
rapacious  Frenchman  got  the  better  of  another. 
Edward  was  a  Frenchman  as  well  as  John,  and 
'French  were  the  cries  that  urged  each  of  the  hosts 
to  the  fight.  French  is  the  beautiful  motto  graven 
round  the  image  of  the  Black  Prince  as  he  lies  for- 
ever at  rest  in  the  choir  of  Canterbury :  a  la  mort 
lie  pensai-je  mye.  Nevertheless,  the  victory  of 
Poitiers  declines  to  lose  itself  in  these  considera- 
tions ;  the  sense  of  it  is  a  part  of  our  heritage,  the 
joy  of  it  a  part  of  our  imagination,  and  it  filters 
down  through  centuries  and  migrations  till  it  titil- 
lates a  New  Yorker  who  forgets  in  his  elation  that 
he  happens  at  that  moment  to  be  enjoying  the 
hospitality  of  France.  It  was  something  done,  I 
know  not  how  justly,  for  England  ;  and  what  was 
done  in  the  fourteenth  century  for  England  was 
done  also  for  New  York. 


XVIII 


ANGOULEME 


IF  it  was  really  for  the  sake  of  the  Black  Prince 
that  I  had  stopped  at  Poitiers  (for  my  pre- 
vision of  Notre  Dame  la  Grande  and  of  the  little 
temple  of  Saint  John  was  of  the  dimmest),  I  ought 
to  have  stopped  at  Angouleme  for  the  sake  of 
David  and  Eve  Sechard,  of  Lucien  de  Rubempre 
and  of  Madame  de  Bargeton,  who  when  she  wore 
a  toilette  ^tudi^e  sported  a  Jewish  turban  orna- 
mented with  an  Eastern  brooch,  a  scarf  of  gauze, 
a  necklace  of  cameos,  and  a  robe  of  "  painted 
muslin,"  whatever  that  may  be  ;  treating  herself 
to  these  luxuries  out  of  an  income  of  twelve  thou- 
sand francs.     The  persons  I  have  mentioned  have 


ANGOULEME  167 

not  that  vagueness  of  identity  which  is  the  mis- 
fortune of  historical  characters ;  they  are  real, 
supremely  real,  thanks  to  their  affiliation  to  the 
great  Balzac,  who  had  invented  an  artificial  reality 
which  was  as  much  better  than  the  vulgar  article 
as  mock-turtle  soup  is  than  the  liquid  it  emulates. 
The  first  time  I  read  "  Les  Illusions  Perdues  "  I 
should  have  refused  to  believe  that  I  was  capable 
of  passing  the  old  capital  of  Anjou  without  alight- 
ing to  visit  the  Houmeau.  But  we  never  know 
what  we  are  capable  of  till  we  are  tested,  as  I 
reflected  when  I  found  myself  looking  back  at 
Angouleme  from  the  window  of  the  train  just  after 
we  had  emerged  from  the  long  tunnel  that  passes 
under  the  town.  This  tunnel  perforates  the  hill 
on  which,  like  Poitiers,  Angouleme  rears  itself,  and 
which  gives  it  an  elevation  still  greater  than  that 
of  Poitiers.  You  may  have  a  tolerable  look  at  the 
cathedral  without  leaving  the  railway  carriage  ; 
for  it  stands  just  above  the  tunnel  and  is  exposed, 
much  foreshortened,  to  the  spectator  below. 
There  is  evidently  a  charming  walk  round  the 
plateau  of  the  town  commanding  those  pretty 
views  of  which  Balzac  gives  an  account.  But  the 
train  whirled  me  away,  and  these  are  my  only 
impressions.  The  truth  is  that  I  had  no  need, 
just  at  that  moment,  of  putting  myself  into  com- 
munication with  Balzac  ;  for  opposite  to  me  in  the 


i68     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

compartment  were  a  couple  of  figures  almost  as 
vivid  as  the  actors  in  the  "  Comedie  Humaine." 
One  of  these  was  a  very  genial  and  dirty  old 
priest,  and  the  other  was  a  reserved  and  concen- 
trated young  monk  —  the  latter  (by  which  I  mean 
a  monk  of  any  kind)  being  a  rare  sight  -to-day  in 
France.  This  young  man  indeed  was  mitigatedly 
monastic.  He  had  a  big  brown  frock  and  cowl, 
but  he  had  also  a  shirt  and  a  pair  of  shoes  ;  he 
had,  instead  of  a  hempen  scourge  round  his  waist, 
a  stout  leather  thong,  and  he  carried  with  him  a 
very  profane  little  valise.  He  also  read,  from  be- 
ginning to  end,  the  "  Figaro  "  which  the  old  priest, 
who  had  done  the  same,  presented  to  him  ;  and  he 
looked  altogether  as  if,  had  he  not  been  a  monk, 
he  would  have  made  a  distinguished  officer  of 
engineers.  When  he  was  not  reading  the  "  Figaro  " 
he  was  conning  his  breviary  or  answering,  with 
rapid  precision  and  with  a  deferential  but  discour- 
aging dryness,  the  frequent  questions  of  his  com- 
panion, who  was  of  quite  another  type.  This 
worthy  had  a  bored,  good-natured,  unbuttoned,  ex- 
pansive look ;  was  talkative,  restless,  almost  dis- 
reputably human.  He  was  surrounded  by  a  great 
deal  of  small  luggage,  and  had  scattered  over  the 
carriage  his  books,  his  papers,  and  fragments  of 
his  lunch,  and  the  contents  of  an  extraordinary 
bag  which  he  kept  beside  him  —  a  kind  of  secular 


ANGOULEME  169 

reliquary  —  and  which  appeared  to  contain  the 
odds  and  ends  of  a  lifetime,  as  he  took  from  it 
successively  a  pair  of  slippers,  an  old  padlock 
(which  evidently  did  not  belong  to  it),  an  opera- 
glass,  a  collection  of  almanacs,  and  a  large  sea- 
shell,  which  he  very  carefully  examined.  I  think 
that  if  he  had  not  been  afraid  of  the  young  monk, 
who  was  so  much  more  serious  than  he,  he  would 
have  held  the  shell  to  his  ear  like  a  child.  Indeed, 
he  was  a  very  childish  and  delightful  old  priest, 
and  his  companion  evidently  thought  him  quite 
frivolous.  But  I  liked  him  the  better  of  the  two. 
He  was  not  a  country  cure,  but  an  ecclesiastic  of 
some  rank,  who  had  seen  a  good  deal  both  of  the 
church  and  of  the  world ;  and  if  I  too  had  not 
been  afraid  of  his  colleague,  who  read  the  "  Fi- 
garo "  as  seriously  as  if  it  had  been  an  encyclical, 
I  should  have  entered  into  conversation  with  him. 
All  this  while  I  was  getting  on  to  Bordeaux, 
where  I  permitted  myself  to  spend  three  days.  I 
am  afraid  I  have  next  to  nothing  to  show  for 
them,  and  that  there  would  be  little  profit  in  lin- 
gering on  this  episode,  which  is  the  less  to  be  jus- 
tified as  I  had  in  former  years  examined  Bordeaux 
attentively  enough.  It  contains  a  very  good  hotel 
—  an  hotel  not  good  enough,  however,  to  keep 
you  there  for  its  own  sake.  For  the  rest  Bor- 
deaux is  a  big,  rich,  handsome,  imposing  commer- 


I/O     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

cial  town,  with  long  rows  of  fine  old  eighteenth- 
century  houses  which  overlook  the  yellow  Garonne. 
I  have  spoken  of  the  quays  of  Nantes  as  fine,  but 
those  of  Bordeaux  have  a  wider  sweep  and  a  still 
more  architectural  air.  The  appearance  of  such  a 
port  as  this  makes  the  Anglo-Saxon  tourist  blush 
for  the  sordid  water-fronts  of  Liverpool  and  New 
York,  which,  with  their  larger  activity,  have  so 
much  more  reason  to  be  stately.  Bordeaux  gives 
a  great  impression  of  prosperous  industries  and 
suggests  delightful  ideas,  images  of  prune  boxes 
and  bottled  claret.  As  the  focus  of  distribution 
of  the  best  wine  in  the  world,  it  is  indeed  a  sacred 
city  —  dedicated  to  the  worship  of  Bacchus  in  the 
most  discreet  form.  The  country  all  about  it  is 
covered  with  precious  vineyards,  .sources  of  for- 
tune to  their  owners  and  of  satisfaction  to  distant 
consumers :  and  as  you  look  over  to  the  hills 
beyond  the  Garonne  you  see  them,  in  the  autumn 
sunshine,  fretted  with  the  rusty  richness  of  this 
or  that  immortal  clos.  But  the  principal  picture, 
within  the  town,  is  that  of  the  vast  curving  quays, 
bordered  with  houses  that  look  like  the  hotels  of 
farmers-general  of  the  last  century,  and  of  the 
wide,  tawny  river,  crowded  with  shipping  and 
spanned  by  the  largest  of  bridges.  Some  of  the 
types  on  the  water-side  are  of  the  sort  that  arrest 
a   sketcher  —  figures    of    stalwart,    brown-faced 


■?% 


*a 


^* 


ANGOULEME  171 

Basques,  such  as  I  had  seen  of  old  in  great  num- 
bers at  Biarritz,  with  their  loose  circular  caps,  their 
white  sandals,  their  air  of  walking  for  a  wager. 
Never  was  a  tougher,  a  harder  race.  They  are 
not  mariners  nor  watermen,  but,  putting  questions 
of  temper  aside,  they  are  the  best  possible  dock- 
porters.  "  II  s'y  fait  un  commerce  terrible,"  a 
douatiier  said  to  me,  as  he  looked  up  and  down  the 
interminable  docks ;  and  such  a  place  has  indeed 
much  to  say  of  the  wealth,  the  capacity  for  pro- 
duction, of  France  —  the  bright,  cheerful,  smoke- 
less industry  of  the  wonderful  country  which 
produces,  above  all,  the  agreeable  things  of  life, 
and  turns  even  its  defeats  and  revolutions  into 
gold.  The  whole  town  has  an  air  of  almost  de- 
pressing opulence,  an  appearance  which  culmi- 
fiates  in  the  great  place  which  surrounds  the 
Grand  Theatre  —  an  establishment  of  the  highest 
style,  encircled  with  columns,  arcades,  lamps, 
gilded  cafes.  One  feels  it  to  be  a  monument  to 
the  virtue  of  the  well-selected  bottle.  If  I  had 
not  forbidden  myself  to  linger  I  should  venture  to 
insist  on  this,  and,  at  the  risk  of  being  called  fan- 
tastic, trace  an  analogy  between  good  claret  and 
the  best  qualities  of  the  French  mind  ;  pretend 
that  there  is  a  taste  of  sound  Bordeaux  in  all  the 
happiest  manifestations  of  that  fine  organ,  and 
that,  correspondingly,  there  is  a  touch  of  French 


172     A   LITTLE  TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

reason,  French  completeness,  in  a  glass  of  Pontet- 
Canet.  The  danger  of  such  an  excursion  would 
lie  mainly  in  its  being  so  open  to  the  reader  to 
take  the  ground  from  under  my  feet  by  saying 
that  good  claret  does  n't  exist.  To  this  I  should 
have  no  reply  whatever.  I  should  be  unable  to 
tell  him  where  to  find  it.  I  certainly  did  n't  find 
it  at  Bordeaux,  where  I  drank  a  most  vulgar  fluid ; 
and  it  is  of  course  notorious  that  a  large  part  of 
mankind  is  occupied  in  vainly  looking  for  it. 
There  was  a  great  pretense  of  putting  it  forward 
at  the  Exhibition  which  was  going  on  at  Bordeaux 
at  the  time  of  my  visit,  an  **  exposition  philoma- 
thique,"  lodged  in  a  collection  of  big  temporary 
buildings  in  the  Alices  d' Orleans,  and  regarded  by 
the  Bordelais  for  the  moment  as  the  most  bril- 
liant feature  of  their  city.  Here  were  pyramids 
of  bottles,  mountains  of  bottles,  to  say  nothing  of 
cases  and  cabinets  of  bottles.  The  contemplation 
of  these  glittering  tiers  was  of  course  not  very 
convincing  ;  and  indeed  the  whole  arrangement 
struck  me  as  a  high  impertinence.  Good  wine  is 
not  an  optical  pleasure,  it  is  an  inward  emotion  ; 
and  if  there  was  a  chamber  of  degustation  on  the 
premises  I  failed  to  discover  it.  It  was  not  in  the 
search  for  it  indeed  that  I  spent  half  an  hour  in 
this  bewildering  bazaar.  Like  all  "expositions," 
it  seemed  to  me  to  be  full  of  ugly  things,  and  gave 


ANGOULEME  173 

one  a  portentous  idea  of  the  quantity  of  rubbish 
that  man  carries  with  him  on  his  course  through 
the  ages.  Such  an  amount  of  luggage  for  a  jour- 
ney after  all  so  short  !  There  were  no  individual 
objects ;  there  was  nothing  but  dozens  and  hun- 
dreds, all  machine-made  and  expressionless,  in 
spite  of  the  repeated  grimace,  the  conscious  smart- 
ness, of  "  the  last  new  thing,"  that  was  stamped 
on  all  of  them.  The  fatal  facility  of  the  French 
article  becomes  at  last  as  irritating  as  the  refrain 
of  a  popular  song.  The  poor  "  Indiens  Galibis  " 
struck  me  as  really  more  interesting  —  a  group  of 
stunted  savages  who  formed  one  of  the  attractions 
of  the  place  and  were  confined  in  a  pen  in  the 
open  air,  with  a  rabble  of  people  pushing  and 
squeezing,  hanging  over  the  barrier,  to  look  at 
them.  They  had  no  grimace,  no  pretension  to  be 
new,  no  desire  to  catch  your  eye.  They  looked  at 
their  visitors  no  more  than  they  looked  at  each 
other,  and  seemed  ancient,  indifferent,  terribly 
bored. 


XIX 


TOULOUSE 

THERE  is  much  entertainment  in  the  journey 
through  the  wide,  smiling  garden  of  Gas- 
cony  ;  I  speak  of  it  as  I  took  it  in  going  from 
Bordeaux  to  Toulouse.  It  is  the  south,  quite  the 
south,  and  had  for  the  present  narrator  its  full 
measure  of  the  charm  he  is  always  determined  to 
find  in  countries  that  may  even  by  courtesy  be  said 
to  appertain  to  the  sun.  It  was,  moreover,  the 
happy  and  genial  view  of  these  mild  latitudes, 
which,  goodness  knows,  often  have  a  dreariness  of 
their  own ;  a  land  teeming  with  corn  and  wine,  and 
speaking  everywhere  (that  is,  everywhere  the  phyl- 


TOULOUSE  175 

loxera  had  not  laid  it  waste)  of  wealth  and  plenty. 
The  road  runs  constantly  near  the  Garonne,  touch- 
ing now  and  then  its  slow,  brown,  rather  sullen 
stream,  a  sullenness  that  incloses  great  dangers 
and  disasters.  The  traces  of  the  horrible  floods 
of  1875  have  disappeared,  and  the  land  smiles  pla- 
cidly enough  while  it  waits  for  another  immersion. 
Toulouse,  at  the  period  I  speak  of,  was  up  to  its 
middle  (and  in  places  above  it)  in  water,  and  looks 
still  as  if  it  had  been  thoroughly  soaked  —  as  if  it 
had  faded  and  shriveled  with  a  long  steeping. 
The  fields  and  copses,  of  course,  are  more  forgiv- 
ing. The  railway  line  follows  as  well  the  charming 
Canal  du  Midi,  which  is  as  pretty  as  a  river,  bar- 
ring the  straightness,  and  here  and  there  occupies 
the  foreground,  beneath  a  screen  of  dense,  tall 
trees,  while  the  Garonne  takes  a  larger  and  more 
irregular  course  a  little  way  beyond  it.  People 
who  are  fond  of  canals  —  and,  speaking  from  the 
pictorial  standpoint,  I  hold  the  taste  to  be  most 
legitimate  — will  delight  in  this  admirable  specimen 
of  the  class,  which  has  a  very  interesting  history, 
not  to  be  narrated  here.  On  the  other  side  of  the 
road  (the  left),  all  the  way,  runs  a  long,  low  line  of 
hills,  or  rather  one  continuous  hill,  or  perpetual 
cliff,  with  a  straight  top,  in  the  shape  of  a  ledge 
of  rock,  which  might  pass  for  a  ruined  wall.  I  am 
afraid  the  reader  will  lose  patience  with  my  habit 


176    A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

of  constantly  referring  to  the  landscape  of  Italy  as 
if  that  were  the  measure  of  the  beauty  of  every 
other.  Yet  I  am  still  more  afraid  that  I  cannot 
apologize  for  it  and  must  leave  it  in  its  culpable 
nakedness.  It  is  an  idle  habit ;  but  the  reader 
will  long  since  have  discovered  that  this  was  an 
idle  journey,  and  that  I  give  my  impressions  as 
they  came  to  me.  It  came  to  me  then  that  in  all 
this  view  there  was  something  transalpine,  with  a 
greater  smartness  and  freshness  and  much  less 
elegance  and  languor.  This  impression  was  oc- 
casionally deepened  by  the  appearance,  on  the  long 
eminence  of  which  I  speak,  of  a  village,  a  church, 
a  chateau,  that  seemed  to  look  down  at  the  plain 
from  over  the  ruined  wall.  The  perpetual  vines, 
the  bright-faced,  flat -roofed  houses,  covered  with 
tiles,  the  softness  and  sweetness  of  the  light  and 
air,  recalled  the  prosier  portions  of  the  Lombard 
plain.  Toulouse  itself  has  a  little  of  this  Italian 
expression,  but  not  enough  to  give  a  color  to  its 
dark,  dirty,  crooked  streets,  which  are  irregular 
without  being  eccentric,  and  which,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  superb  church  of  Saint-Sernin,  would  be 
quite  destitute  of  monuments. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  way  in  which  the 
names  of  certain  places  impose  themselves  on  the 
mind,  and  I  must  add  that  of  Toulouse  to  the  list 
of  expressive  appellations.     It  certainly  evokes  a 


HOTEL,   D'ASSEZAT,   TOULOUSE 


TOULOUSE  .      177 

vision  —  suggests  something  highly  meridional. 
But  the  city,  it  must  be  confessed,  is  less  pictorial 
than  the  word,  in  spite  of  the  Place  du  Capitole, 
in  spite  of  the  quay  of  the  Garonne,  in  spite  of  the 
curious  cloister  of  the  old  museum.  What  justifies 
the  images  that  are  latent  in  the  word  is  not  the 
aspect,  but  the  history,  of  the  town.  The  hotel 
to.  which  the  well-advised  traveler  will  repair 
stands  in  a  corner  of  the  Place  du  Capitole,  which 
is  the  heart  and  centre  of  Toulouse,  and  which 
bears  a  vague  and  inexpensive  resemblance  to 
Piazza  Castello  at  Turin.  The  Capitol,  with  a 
wide  modern  face,  occupies  one  side,  and,  like  the 
palace  at  Turin,  looks  across  at  a  high  arcade, 
under  which  the  hotels,  the  principal  shops,  and 
the  lounging  citizens  are  gathered.  The  shops 
are  probably  better  than  the  Turinese,  but  the 
people  are  not  so  good.  Stunted,  shabby,  rather 
vitiated  looking,  they  have  none  of  the  personal 
richness  of  the  sturdy  Piedmontese ;  and  I  will 
take  this  occasion  to  remark  that  in  the  course  of 
a  journey  of  several  weeks  in  the  French  provinces 
I  rarely  encountered  a  well-dressed  male.  Can  it 
be  possible  that  republics  are  unfavorable  to  a 
certain  attention  to  one's  boots  and  one's  beard } 
I  risk  this  somewhat  futile  inquiry  because  the 
proportion  of  neat  coats  and  trousers  seemed  to  be 
about  the  same  in  France  and  in  my  native  land. 


178     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

It  was  notably  lower  than  in  England  and  in  Italy, 
and  even  warranted  the  supposition  that  most  good 
provincials  have  their  chin  shaven  and  their  boots 
blacked  but  once  a  week.  I  hasten  to  add,  lest 
my  observation  should  appear  to  be  of  a  sadly  super- 
ficial character,  that  the  manners  and  conversation 
of  these  gentlemen  bore  (whenever  I  had  occasion 
to  appreciate  them)  no  relation  to  the  state  of  their 
chin  and  their  boots.  They  were  almost  always 
marked  by  an  extreme  amenity.  At  Toulouse 
there  was  the  strongest  temptation  to  speak  to 
people  simply  for  the  entertainment  of  hearing 
them  reply  with  that  curious,  that  fascinating  ac- 
cent of  the  Languedoc,  which  appears  to  abound 
in  final  consonants  and  leads  the  Toulousians  to 
say  bien-g  and  maison-g  like  Englishmen  learning 
French.  It  is  as  if  they  talked  with  their  teeth 
rather  than  with  their  tongue.  I  find  in  my  note- 
book a  phrase  in  regard  to  Toulouse  which  is  per- 
haps a  little  ill-natured,  but  which  I  will  transcribe 
as  it  stands  :  "The  oddity  is  that  the  place  should 
be  both  animated  and  dull.  A  big,  brown-skinned 
population,  clattering  about  in  a  flat,  tortuous 
town,  which  produces  nothing  whatever  that  I  can 
discover.  Except  the  church  of  Saint-Sernin  and 
the  fine  old  court  of  the  H6tel  d'Assezat,  Tou-' 
louse  has  no  architecture  ;  the  houses  are  for  the 
most  part  of  brick,  of  a  grayish-red  color,  and  have 


TOULOUSE  179 

no  particular  style.  The  brickwork  of  the  place 
is  in  fact  very  poor  —  inferior  to  that  of  the  North 
Italian  towns,  and  'quite  wanting  in  the  wealth  of 
tone  which  this  homely  material  takes  on  in  gen- 
eral in  the  climates  of  dampness  and  greenness." 
And  then  my  note-book  goes  on  to  narrate  a  little 
visit  to  the  Capitol,  which  was  soon  made,  as  the 
building  was  in  course  of  repair  and  half  the  rooms 
were  closed. 


XX 

TOULOUSE:   THE   CAPITOL 

THE  history  of  Toulouse  is  detestable,  satu- 
rated with  blood  and  perfidy ;  and  the  an- 
cient custom  of  the  Floral  Games,  grafted  upon  all 
sorts  of  internecine  traditions,  seems,  with  its  false 
pastoralism,  its  mock  chivalry,  its  display  of  fine 
feelings,  to  set  off  rather  than  to  mitigate  these 
horrors.  The  society  was  founded  in  the  four- 
teenth century,  and  it  has  held  annual  meetings 
ever  since  —  meetings  at  which  poems  in  the  fine 
old  langue  d'oc  are  declaimed  and  a  blushing  lau- 
reate is  chosen.  This  business  takes  place  in  the 
Capitol,  before  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  town, 
who  is  known  as  the  capitoiil,  and  of  all  the  pretty 
women  as  well  —  a  class  very  numerous  at  Tou- 
louse. It  is  unusual  to  present  a  finer  person 
than  chat  of  the  portress  who  pretended  to  show 
me  the  apartments  in  which  the  Floral  Games  are 
held ;  a  big,  brown,  expansive  woman,  still  in  the 
prime  of  life,  with  a  speaking  eye,  an  extraordinary 
assurance,  and  a  pair  of  magenta  stockings,  which 
were  inserted  into  the  neatest  and  most  polished 


TOULOUSE:   THE   CAPITOL     i8i 

little  black  sabots,  and  which,  as  she  clattered  up 
the  stairs  before  me,  lavishly  displaying  them, 
made  her  look  like  the  heroine  of  an  opera-boiiffe. 
Her  talk  was  all  in  fis,g?>  and  d's,  and  in  mute  es 
strongly  accented,  as  autre,  theatre,  splendide  —  the 
last  being  an  epithet  she  applied  to  everything  the 
Capitol  contained,  and  especially  to  a  horrible  pic- 
ture representing  the  famous  Clemence  Isaure,  the 
reputed  foundress  of  the  poetical  contest,  presid- 
ing on  one  of  these  occasions.  I  wondered  whether 
Clemence  Isaure  had  been  anything  like  this  ter- 
rible Toulousaine  of  to-day,  who  would  have  been 
a  capital  figure-head  for  a  floral  game.  The  lady 
in  whose  honor  the  picture  I  have  just  mentioned 
was  painted  is  a  somewhat  mythical  personage, 
and  she  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  "Biographic 
Universelle. "  She  is,  however,  a  very  graceful 
myth  ;  and  if  she  never  existed  her  statue  at  least 
does — a  shapeless  effigy  transferred  to  the  Cap- 
itol from  the  so-called  tomb  of  Clemence  in  the 
old  church  of  La  Daurade.  The  great  hall  in 
which  the  Floral  Games  are  held  was  encumbered 
with  scaffoldings,  and  I  was  unable  to  admire  the 
long  series  of  busts  of  the  bards  who  have  won 
prizes  and  the  portraits  of  all  the  capitouls  of 
Toulouse.  As  a  compensation  I  was  introduced 
to  a  big  bookcase  filled  with  the  poems  that  have 
been  crowned  since  the  days  of  the  troubadours 


i82     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

(a  portentous  collection),  and  the  big  butcher's 
knife  with  which,  according  to  the  legend,  Henry, 
Duke  of  Montmorency,  who  had  conspired  against 
the  great  cardinal  with  Gaston  of  Orleans  and 
Mary  de'  Medici,  was,  in  1632,  beheaded  on  this 
spot  by  the  order  of  Richelieu.  With  these  ob- 
jects the  interest  of  the  Capitol  was  exhausted. 
The  building  indeed  has  not  the  grandeur  of  its 
name,  which  is  a  sort  of  promise  that  the  visitor 
will  find  some  sensible  embodiment  of  the  old 
Roman  tradition  that  once  flourished  in  this  part 
of  France.  It  is  inferior  in  impressiveness  to  the 
other  three  famous  Capitols  of  the  modern  world  — 
that  of  Rome  (if  I  may  call  the  present  structure 
modern)  and  those  of  Washington  and  Albany ! 

The  only  Roman  remains  at  Toulouse  are  to  be 
found  in  the  museum  —  a  very  interesting  estab- 
lishment, which  I  was  condemned  to  see  as  imper- 
fectly as  I  had  seen  the  Capitol.  It  was  being 
rearranged ;  and  the  gallery  of  paintings,  which 
is  the  least  interesting  feature,  was  the  only  part 
^hat  was  not  upside-down.  The  pictures  are 
mainly  of  the  modern  French  school,  and  I  re- 
member nothing  but  a  powerful  though  disagree- 
able specimen  of  Henner,  who  paints  the  human 
body,  and  paints  it  so  well,  with  a  brush  dipped  in 
blackness ;  and,  placed  among  the  paintings,  a 
bronze  replica  of  the  charming  young  David  of 
Mercid     These  things  have  been  set  out  in  the 


TOULOUSE:   THE   CAPITOL     183 

church  of  an  old  monastery,  long  since  suppressed, 
and  the  rest  of  the  collection  occupies  the  clois- 
ters. These  are  two  in  number  —  a  small  one, 
which  you  enter  first  from  the  street,  and  a  very 
vast  and  elegant  one  beyond  it,  which  with  its  light 
gothic  arches  and  slim  columns  (of  the  fourteenth 
century),  its  broad  walk,  its  little  garden  with  old 
tombs  and  statues  in  the  centre,  is  by  far  the  most 
picturesque,  the  most  sketchable,  spot  in  Toulouse. 
It  must  be  doubly  so  when  the  Roman  busts, 
inscriptions,  slabs,  and  sarcophagi  are  ranged  along 
the  walls ;  it  must  indeed  (to  compare  small  things 
with  great,  and  as  the  judicious  Murray  remarks) 
bear  a  certain  resemblance  to  the  Campo  Santo  at 
Pisa.  But  these  things  are  absent  now ;  the  clois- 
ter is  a  litter  of  confusion,  and  its  treasures  have 
been  stowed  away  confusedly  in  sundry  inacces- 
sible rooms.  The  custodian  attempted  to  console 
me  by  telling  me  that  when  they  are  exhibited 
again  it  will  be  on  a  scientific  basis  and  with  an 
order  and  regularity  of  which  they  were  formerly 
innocent.  But  I  was  not  consoled.  I  wanted 
simply  the  spectacle,  the  picture,  and  I  did  n't 
care  in  the  least  for  the  classification.  Old  Roman 
fragments  exposed  to  light  in  the  open  air,  under 
a  southern  sky,  in  a  quadrangle  round  a  garden, 
have  an  immortal  charm  simply  in  their  general 
effect ;  and  the  charm  is  all  the  greater  when  the 
soil  of  the  very  place  has  yielded  them  up. 


XXI 


TOULOUSE:  SAINT-SERNIN 


MY  real  consolation  was  an  hour  I  spent  in 
Saint-Sernin,  one  of  the  noblest  churches 
in  southern  France,  and  easily  the  first  among 
those  of  Toulouse.  This  great  structure,  a  mas- 
terpiece of  twelfth-century  romanesque  and  dedi- 
cated to  Saint  Saturninus  —  the  Toulousians 
have  abbreviated  —  is,    I   think,   alone   worth   a 


TOULOUSE:    SAINT-SERNIN     185 

journey  to  Toulouse.  What  makes  it  so  is  the 
extraordinary  seriousness  of  its  interior ;  no  other 
term  occurs  to  me  as  expressing  so  well  the  char- 
acter of  its  clear  gray  nave.  As  a  general  thing 
I  favor  little  the  fashion  of  attributing  moral  qual- 
ities to  buildings  ;  I  shrink  from  talking  about 
tender  cornices  and  sincere  campanili ;  but  one 
feels  that  one  can  scarce  get  on  without  imputing 
some  sort  of  morality  to  Saint-Sernin.  As  it 
stands  to-day  the  church  has  been  completely 
restored  by  Viollet-le-Duc.  The  exterior  is  of 
brick  and  has  little  charm  save  that  of  a  tower  of 
four  rows  of  arches,  narrowing  together  as  they 
ascend.  The  nave  is  of  great  length  and  height, 
the  barrel  roof  of  stone,  the  effect  of  the  round 
arches  and  pillars  in  the  triforium  especially  fine. 
There  are  two  low  aisles  on  either  side.  The 
choir  is  very  deep  and  narrow ;  it  seems  to  close 
together  and  looks  as  if  it  were  meant  for  intensely 
earnest  rites.  The  transepts  are  most  noble,  espe- 
cially the  arches  of  the  second  tier.  The  whole 
church  is  narrow  for  its  length  and  is  singularly 
complete  and  homogeneous.  As  I  say  all  this  I 
feel  that  I  quite  fail  to  give  an  impression  of  its 
manly  gravity,  its  strong  proportions,  or  of  the 
lonesome  look  of  its  renovated  stones,  as  I  sat 
there  while  the  October  twilight  gathered.  It  is 
a  real  work  of  art,  a  high  conception.     The  crypt. 


i86     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE- 

into  which  I  was  eventually  led  captive  by  an 
importunate  sacristan,  is  quite  another  affair, 
though  indeed  I  suppose  it  may  also  be  spoken  of 
as  a  work  of  art.  It  is  a  rich  museum  of  relics, 
and  contains  the  head  of  Saint  Thomas  Aquinas 
wrapped  up  in  a  napkin  and  exhibited  in  a  glass 
case.  The  sacristan  took  a  lamp  and  guided  me 
about,  presenting  me  to  one  saintly  remnant  after 
another.  The  impression  was  grotesque,  but  some 
of  the  objects  were  contained  in  curious  old  cases 
of  beaten  silver  and  brass ;  these  things,  at  least, 
which  looked  as  if  they  had  been  transmitted 
from  the  early  church,  were  venerable.  There 
was,  however,  a  kind  of  wholesale  sanctity  about 
the  place  which  overshot  the  mark ;  it  pretends  to 
be  one  of  the  holiest  spots  in  the  world.  The 
effect  is  spoiled  by  the  way  the  sacristans  hang 
about  and  offer  to  take  you  into  it  for  ten  sous  — I 
was  accosted  by  two  and  escaped  from  another  — 
and  by  the  familiar  manner  in  which  you  pop  in 
and  out.  This  episode  rather  broke  the  charm 
of  Saint-Sernin,  so  that  I  took  my  departure  and 
went  in  search  of  the  cathedral.  It  was  scarcely 
worth  finding,  and  struck  me  as  an  odd,  dislo- 
cated fragment.  The  front  consists  only  of  a 
portal,  beside  which  a  tall  brick  tower  of  a'  later 
period  has  been  erected.  The  nave  was  wrapped 
in  dimness,  with  a  few  scattered  lamps.     I  could 


SAINT-SERNIX,    TOULOUSE,    THE   TRANSEPT 


TOULOUSE:   SAINT-SERNIN     187 

only  distinguish  an  immense  vault,  like  a  high 
cavern,  without  aisles.  Here  and  there  in  the 
gloom  was  a  kneeling  figure ;  the  whole  place  was 
mysterious  and  lopsided.  The  choir  was  curtained 
off ;  it  appeared  not  to  correspond  with  the  nave 
—  that  is,  not  to  have  the  same  axis.  The  only 
other  ecclesiastical  impression  I  gathered  at  Tou- 
louse came  to  me  in  the  church  of  La  Daurade,  of 
which  the  front,  on  the  quay  by  the  Garonne,  was 
closed  with  scaffoldings ;  so  that  one  entered  it 
from  behind,  where  it  is  completely  masked  by 
houses,  through  a  door  which  has  at  first  no  trace- 
able connection  with  it.  It  is  a  vast,  high,  mod- 
ernized, heavily  decorated  church,  dimly  lighted 
at  all  times,  I  should  suppose,  and  enriched  by 
the  shades  of  evening  at  the  time  I  looked  into  it. 
I  perceived  that  it  consisted  mainly  of  a  large 
square,  beneath  a  dome,  in  the  centre  of  which  a 
single  person  —  a  lady  —  was  praying  with  the 
utmost  absorption.  The  manner  of  access  to  the 
church  interposed  such  an  obstacle  to  the  outer 
profanities  that  I  had  a  sense  of  intruding  and 
presently  withdrew,  carrying  with  me  a  picture  of 
the  vast,  still  interior,  the  gilded  roof  gleaming  in 
the  twilight  and  the  solitary  worshiper.  What 
was  she  praying  for,  and  was  she  not  almost  afraid 
to  remain  there  alone  ? 

For  the  rest  the  picturesque  at  Toulouse  con- 


i88     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

sists  principally  of  the  walk  beside  the  Garonne, 
which  is  spanned,  to  the  faubourg  of  Saint- 
Cyprien,  by  a  stout  brick  bridge.  This  hapless 
suburb,  the  baseness  of  whose  site  is  noticeable, 
lay  for  days  under  the  water  at  the  time  of  the  last 
inundations.  The  Garonne  had  almost  mounted 
to  the  roofs  of  the  houses,  and  the  place  contin- 
ues to  present  a  blighted,  frightened  look.  Two 
or  three  persons  with  whom  I  had  some  conversa- 
tion spoke  of  that  time  as  a  memory  of  horror.  I 
have  not  done  with  my  Italian  comparisons  ;  I 
shall  never  have  done  with  them.  I  am  there- 
fore free  to  say  that  in  the  way  in  which  Toulouse 
looks  out  on  the  Garonne  there  was  something 
that  reminded  me  vaguely  of  the  way  in  which 
Pisa  looks  out  on  the  Arno.    The  red-faced  houses 

—  all  of  brick  —  along  the  quay  have  a  mixture 
of  brightness  and  shabbiness,  as  well  as  the  fash- 
ion of  the  open  loggia  in  the  top  story.  The 
river,  with  another  bridge  or  two,  might  be  the 
Arno,  and  the  buildings  on  the  other  side  of  it 

—  a  hospital,  a  suppressed  convent  —  dip  their 
feet  into  it  with  real  southern  cynicism,  I  have 
spoken  of  the  old  H6tel  d'Ass^zat  as  the  best 
house  at  Toulouse ;  with  the  exception  of  the 
cloister  of  the  museum  it  is  the  only  "  bit "  I  re- 
member. It  has  fallen  from  the  state  of  a  noble 
residence  of   the  sixteenth  century  to   that  of  a 


TOULOUSE:    SAINT-SERNIN     189 

warehouse  and  a  set  of  offices ;  but  a  certain 
dignity  lingers  in  its  melancholy  court,  which  is 
divided  from  the  street  by  a  gateway  that  is  still 
imposing  and  in  which  a  clambering  vine  and  a 
red  Virginia-creeper  were  suspended  to  the  rusty 
walls  of  brick  and  stone. 

The  most  interesting  house  at  Toulouse  is  far 
from  being  the  most  striking.  At  the  door  of 
No.  50  Rue  des  Filatiers,  a  featureless,  solid 
structure,  was  found  hanging,  one  autumn  even- 
ing, the  body  of  the  young  Marc-Antoine  Galas, 
whose  ill-inspired  suicide  was  to  be  the  first  act 
of  a  tragedy  so  horrible.  The  fanaticism  aroused 
in  the  townsfolk  by  this  incident ;  the  execution 
by  torture  of  Jean  Galas,  accused  as  a  Protestant 
of  having  hanged  his  son,  who  had  gone  over  to 
the  Ghurch  of  Rome  ;  the  ruin  of  the  family  ;  the 
claustration  of  the  daughters  ;  the  flight  of  the 
widow  to  Switzerland ;  her  introduction  to  Vol- 
taire ;  the  excited  zeal  of  that  incomparable  par- 
tisan and  the  passionate  persistence  with  which, 
from  year  to  year,  he  pursued  a  reversal  of  judg- 
ment till  at  last  he  obtained  it  and  devoted  the 
tribunal  of  Toulouse  to  execration  and  the  name 
of  the  victims  to  lasting  wonder  and  pity  —  these 
things  form  part  of  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  touching  episodes  of  the  social  history  of 
the  eighteenth  century.     The  story  has  the  fatal 


I90    A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN   FRANCE 

progression,  the  dark  rigor,  of  one  of  the  tragic 
dramas  of  the  Greeks.  Jean  Calas,  advanced  in 
life,  blameless,  bewildered,  protesting  his  inno- 
cence, had  been  broken  on  the  wheel ;  and  the 
sight  of  his  decent  dwelling,  which  brought  home 
to  me  all  that  had  been  suffered  there,  spoiled  for 
me,  for  half  an  hour,  the  impression  of  Toulouse. 


XXII 

CARCASSONNE 

I  SPENT  but  a  few  hours  at  Carcassonne ;  but 
those  hours  had  a  rounded  felicity,  and  I  can- 
not do  better  than  transcribe  from  my  note-book 
the  little  record  made  at  the  moment.  Vitiated  as 
it  may  be  by  crudity  and  incoherency,  it  has  at 
any  rate  the  freshness  of  a  great  emotion.  This 
is  the  best  quality  that  a  reader  may  hope  to  ex- 
tract from  a  narrative  in  which  "  useful  informa- 
tion "  and  technical  lore  even  of  the  most  general 
sort  are  completely  absent.  For  Carcassonne  is 
moving,  beyond  a  doubt ;  and  the  traveler  who  in 
the  course  of  a  little  tour  in  France  may  have  felt 
himself  urged,  in  melancholy  moments,  to  say 
that  on  the  whole  the  disappointments  are  as  nu- 
merous as  the  satisfactions,  must  admit  that  there 
can  be  nothing  better  than  this. 

The  country  after  you  leave  Toulouse  continues 
to  be  charming ;  the  more  so  that  it  merges  its 
flatness  in  the  distant  Cevennes  on  one  side,  and 
on  the  other,  far  away  on  your  right,  in  the  richer 
range   of   the   Pyrenees.     Olives   and  cypresses, 


192     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

pergolas  and  vines,  terraces  on  the  roofs  of 
houses,  soft,  iridescent  mountains,  a  warm  yellow 
light  —  what  more  could  the  difficult  tourist  want  ? 
He  left  his  luggage  at  the  station,  warily  deter- 
mined to  look  at  the  inn  before  committing  himself 
to  it.  It  was  so  evident  (even  to  a  cursory  glance) 
that  it  might  easily  have  been  much  better  that  he 
simply  took  his  way  to  the  town,  with  the  whole 
of  a  superb  afternoon  before  him.  When  I  say 
the  town,  I  mean  the  towns ;  there  being  two  at 
Carcassonne,  perfectly  distinct,  and  each  with  ex- 
cellent claims  to  the  title.  They  have  settled  the 
matter  between  them,  however,  and  the  elder, 
the  shrine  of  pilgrimage,  to  which  the  other  is  but 
a  stepping-stone,  or  even,  as  I  may  say,  a  humble 
door-mat,  takes  the  name  of  the  Cite.  You  see 
nothing  of  the  Cite  from  the  station ;  it  is  masked 
by  the  agglomeration  of  the  villc-bassc,  which  is 
relatively  (but  only  relatively)  new.  A  wonderful 
avenue  of  acacias  leads  to  it  from  the  station  — 
leads  past  it,  rather,  and  conducts  you  to  a  little 
high-backed  bridge  over  the  Aude,  beyond  which, 
detached  and  erect,  a  distinct  mediaeval  silhouette, 
the  Cit^  presents  itself.  Like  a  rival  shop  on  the 
invidious  side  of  a  street,  it  has  "  no  connection  " 
with  the  establishment  across  the  way,  although 
the  two  places  are  united  (if  old  Carcassonne  may 
be  said  to  be  united  to  anything)  by  a  vague  little 


CARCASSONNE  193 

rustic  faubourg.  Perched  on  its  solid  pedestal, 
the  perfect  detachment  of  the  Cite  is  what  first 
strikes  you.  To  take  leave,  without  delay,  of  the 
viile-basse,  I  may  say  that  the  splendid  acacias  I 
have  mentioned  flung  a  summerish  dusk  over  the 
place,  in  which  a  few  scattered  remains  of  stout 
walls  and  big  bastions  looked  venerable  and  pic- 
turesque. A  little  boulevard  winds  round  the 
town,  planted  with  trees  and  garnished  with  more 
benches  than  I  ever  saw  provided  by  a  soft-hearted 
municipality.  This  precinct  had  a  warm,  lazy, 
dusty,  southern  look,  as  if  the  people  sat  out-of- 
doors  a  great  deal  and  wandered  about  in  the  still- 
ness of  summer  nights.  The  figure  of  the  elder 
town  at  these  hours  must  be  ghostly  enough  on  its 
neighboring  hill.  Even  by  day  it  has  the  air  of 
a  vignette  of  Gustave  Dore,  a  couplet  of  Victor 
Hugo.  It  is  almost  too  perfect  —  as  if  it  were  an 
enormous  model  placed  on  a  big  green  table  at  a 
museum.  A  steep,  paved  way,  grass-grown  like 
all  roads  where  vehicles  never  pass,  stretches  up 
to  it  in  the  sun.  It  has  a  double  enceinte,  com- 
plete outer  walls  and  complete  inner  (these,  elabo- 
rately fortified,  are  the  more  curious)  ;  and  this 
congregation  of  ramparts,  towers,  bastions,  battle- 
ments, barbicans,  is  as  fantastic  and  romantic  as 
you  please.  The  approach  I  mention  here  leads 
to  the  gate   that  looks   toward   Toulouse  —  the 


194    A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

Porte  de  I'Aude.  There  is  a  second,  on  the  other 
side,  called,  I  believe,  the  Porte  Narbonnaise,  a 
magnificent  gate,  flanked  with  towers  thick  and 
tall,  defended  by  elaborate  outworks  ;  and  these 
two  apertures  alone  admit  you  to  the  place  —  put- 
ting aside  a  small  sally-port,  protected  by  a  great 
bastion,  on  the  quarter  that  looks  toward  the 
Pyrenees. 

As  a  votary,  always,  in  the  first  instance,  of  a 
general  impression,  I  walked  all  round  the  outer 
enceinte  —  a  process  on  the  very  face  of  it  enter- 
taining. I  took  to  the  right  of  the  Porte  de  I'Aude, 
without  entering  it,  where  the  old  moat  has  been 
filled  in.  The  filling-in  of  the  moat  has  created  a 
grassy  level  at  the  foot  of  the  big  gray  towers, 
which,  rising  at  frequent  intervals,  stretch  their 
stiff  curtain  of  stone  from  point  to  point,  the  cur- 
tain drops  without  a  fold  upon  the  quiet  grass, 
which  was  dotted  here  and  there  with  a  humble 
native  dozing  away  the  golden  afternoon.  The 
natives  of  the  elder  Carcassonne  are  all  humble ; 
for  the  core  of  the  Cite  has  shrunken  and  decayed, 
and  there  is  little  life  among  the  ruins.  A  few 
tenacious  laborers  who  work  in  the  neighboring 
fields  or  in  the  ville-bassc,  and  sundry  octoge- 
narians of  both  sexes  who  are  dying  wjiere  they 
have  lived  and  contribute  much  to  the  pictorial 
effect  —  these  are  the  principal  inhabitants.     The 


CARCASSONNE  195 

process  of  converting  the  place  from  an  irrespon- 
sible old  town  into  a  conscious  "  specimen  "  has  of 
course  been  attended  with  eliminations  ;  the  popu- 
lation has,  as  a  general  thing,  been  restored  away. 
I  should  lose  no  time  in  saying  that  restoration  is 
the  great  mark  of  the  Cite.  M.  Viollet-le-Duc 
has  worked  his  will  upon  it,  put  it  into  perfect 
order,  revived  the  fortifications  in  every  detail.  I 
do  not  pretend  to  judge  the  performance,  carried 
out  on  a  scale  and  in  a  spirit  which  really  impose 
themselves  on  the  imagination.  Few  architects 
have  had  such  a  chance,  and  M.  Viollet-le-Duc 
must  have  been  the  envy  of  the  whole  restoring 
fraternity.  The  image  of  a  more  crumbling  Car- 
cassonne rises  in  the  mind,  and  there  is  no  doubt 
that  forty  years  ago  the  place  was  more  affecting. 
On  the  other  hand,  as  we  see  it  to-day  it  is  a 
wonderful  evocation  ;  and  if  there  is  a  great  deal 
of  new  in  the  old,  there  is  plenty  of  old  in  the  new. 
The  repaired  crenellations,  the  inserted  patches  of 
the  walls  of  the  outer  circle  sufficiently  express  this 
commixture.  My  walk  brought  me  into  full  view  of 
the  Pyrenees,  which,  now  that  the  sun  had  begun  to 
sink  and  the  shadows  to  grow  long,  had  a  wonder- 
ful violet  glow.  The  platform  at  the  base  of  the 
walls  has  a  greater  width  on  this  side,  and  it  made 
the  scene  more  complete.  Two  or  three  old 
crones  had  crawled  out  of  the  Porte  Narbonnaise 


196     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

to  examine  the  advancing  visitor ;  and  a  very 
ancient  peasant,  lying  there  with  his  back  against 
a  tower,  was  tending  half  a  dozen  lean  sheep.  A 
poor  man  in  a  very  old  blouse,  crippled  and  with 
crutches  lying  beside  him,  had  been  brought  out 
and  placed  on  a  stool,  where  he  enjoyed  the  after- 
noon as  best  he  might.  He  looked  so  ill  and  so 
patient  that  I  spoke  to  him ;  found  that  his  legs 
were  paralyzed  and  he  was  quite  helpless.  He  had 
formerly  been  seven  years  in  the  army  and  had 
made  the  campaign  of  Mexico  with  Bazaine. 
Born  in  the  old  Cite,  he  had  come  back  there  to 
end  his  days.  It  seemed  strange,  as  he  sat  there 
with  those  romantic  walls  behind  him  and  the 
great  picture  of  the  Pyrenees  in  front,  to  think 
that  he  had  been  across  the  seas  to  the  far-away 
new  world,  had  made  part  of  a  famous  expedition, 
and  was  now  a  cripple  at  the  gate  of  the  mediaeval 
city  where  he  had  played  as  a  child.  All  this 
struck  me  as  a  great  deal  of  history  for  so  modest 
a  figure  —  a  poor  little  figure  that  could  only  just 
unclose  its  palm  for  a  small  silver  coin. 

He  was  not  the  only  acquaintance  I  made  at 
Carcassonne.  I  had  not  pursued  my  circuit  of  the 
walls  much  further  when  I  encountered  a  person 
of  quite  another  type,  of  whom  I  asked  some 
question  which  had  just  then  presented  itself,  and 
who  proved  to  be  the  very  genius  of  the  spot. 


CARCASSONNE  197 

He  was  a  sociable  son  of  the  ville-basse,  a  gentle- 
man, and,  as  I  afterwards  learned,  an  employe  at 
the  prefecture  —  a  person,  in  short,  much  esteemed 
at  Carcassonne.  (I  may  say  all  this,  as  he  will 
never  read  these  pages.)  He  had  been  ill  for  a 
month,  and  in  the  company  of  his  little  dog  was 
taking  his  first  airing;  in  his  own  phrase  he  was 
amouretix-foii  de  la  Cit^ —  he  could  lose  no  time 
in  coming  back  to  it.  He  talked  of  it  indeed  as  a 
lover,  and,  giving  me  for  half  an  hour  the  advan- 
tage of  his  company,  showed  me  all  the  points  of 
the  place.  (I  speak  here  always  of  the  outer 
enceinte ;  you  penetrate  to  the  inner  —  which  is  the 
specialty  of  Carcassonne,  and  the  great  curiosity 
—  only  by  application  at  the  lodge  of  the  regular 
custodian,  a  remarkable  functionary,  who,  half  an 
hour  later,  when  I  had  been  introduced  to  him 
by  my  friend  the  amateur,  marched  me  over  the 
fortifications  with  a  tremendous  accompaniment 
of  dates  and  technical  terms.)  My  companion 
pointed  out  to  me  in  particular  the  traces  of  differ- 
ent periods  in  the  structure  of  the  walls.  There 
is  a  portentous  amount  of  history  embedded  in 
them,  beginning  with  Romans  and  Visigoths ; 
here  and  there  are  marks  of  old  breaches  hastily 
repaired.  We  passed  into  the  town  —  into  that 
part  of  it  not  included  in  the  citadel.  It  is  the 
queerest  and  most  fragmentary  little  place  in  the 


198     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

world,  as  everything  save  the  fortifications  is  being 
suffered  to  crumble  away  in  order  that  the  spirit 
of  M.  Viollet-le-Duc  alone  may  pervade  it  and  it 
may  subsist  simply  as  a  magnificent  shell.  As 
the  leases  of  the  wretched  little  houses  fall  in,  the 
ground  is  cleared  of  them ;  and  a  mumbling  old 
woman  approached  me  in  the  course  of  my  circuit, 
inviting  me  to  condole  with  her  on  the  disappear- 
ance of  so  many  of  the  hovels  which  in  the  last  few 
hundred  years  (since  the  collapse  of  Carcassonne  as 
a  stronghold)  had  attached  themselves  to  the  base 
of  the  walls,  in  the  space  between  the  two  circles. 
These  habitations,  constructed  of  materials  taken 
from  the  ruins,  nestled  there  snugly  enough. 
This  intermediate  space  had  therefore  become  a 
kind  of  street,  which  has  crumbled  in  turn,  as  the 
fortress  has  grown  up  again.  There  are  other 
streets  beside,  very  diminutive  and  vague,  where 
you  pick  your  way  over  heaps  of  rubbish  and  be- 
come conscious  of  unexpected  faces  looking  at 
you  out  of  windows  as  detached  as  the  cherubic 
heads.  The  most  definite  thing  in  the  place  was 
the  little  caf6,  where  the  waiters,  I  think,  must  be 
the  ghosts  of  the  old  Visigoths  ;  the  most  definite, 
that  is,  after  the  little  chateau  and  the  little 
cathedral.  Everything  in  the  Cit^  is  little;  you 
can  walk  round  the  walls  in  twenty  minutes.  On 
the   drawbridge   of   the   chateau,   which,   with  a 


CARCASSONNE  199 

picturesque  old  face,  flanking  towers,  and  a  dry 
moat,  is  to-day  simply  a  bare  caserne^  lounged  half 
a  dozen  soldiers,  unusually  small.  Nothing  could 
be  more  odd  than  to  see  these  objects  inclosed  in 
a  receptacle  which  has  much  of  the  appearance 
of  an  enormous  toy.  The  Cite  and  its  population 
vaguely  reminded  me  of  an  immense  Noah's  ark. 


XXIII 

CARCASSONNE 

CARCASSONNE  dates  from  the  Roman  oc- 
cupation of  Gaul.  The  place  commanded 
one  of  the  great  roads  into  Spain,  and  in  the 
fourth  century  Romans  and  Franks  ousted  each 
other  from  such  a  point  of  vantage.  In  the  year 
436  Theodoric,  King  of  the  Visigoths,  superseded 
both  these  parties ;  and  it  was  during  his  occupa- 
tion that  the  inner  enceinte  was  raised  upon  the 
ruins  of  the  Rorrian  fortifications.  Most  of  the 
Visigoth  towers  that  are  still  erect  are  seated 
upon  Roman  substructions,  which  appear  to  have 
been  formed  hastily,  probably  at  the  moment  of 
the  Prankish  invasion.  The  authors  of  these  solid 
defenses,  though  occasionally  disturbed,  held  Car- 
cassonne and  the  neighboring  country,  in  which 
they  had  established  their  kingdom  of  Septimania, 
till  the  year  713,  when  they  were  expelled  by  the 
Moors  of  Spain,  who  ushered  in  an  unillumined 
period  of  four  centuries,  of  which  no  traces  re- 
main. These  facts  I  derive  from  a  source  no 
more  recondite  than  a  pamphlet  by  M.  Viollet-le- 


CARCASSONNE  201 

Due  —  a  very  luminous  description  of  the  forti- 
fications, which  you  may  buy  from  the  accom- 
pHshed  custodian.  The  writer  makes  a  jump  to 
the  year  1209,  when  Carcassonne,  then  forming 
part  of  the  realm  of  the  viscounts  of  Beziers  and 
infected  by  the  Albigensian  heresy,  was  besieged, 
in  the  name  of  the  Pope,  by  the  terrible  Simon  de 
Montfort  and  his  army  of  crusaders.  Simon  was 
accustomed  to  success,  and  the  town  succumbed 
in  the  course  of  a  fortnight.  Thirty-one  years 
later,  having  passed  into  the  hands  of  the  King  of 
France,  it  was  again  besieged  by  the  young  Ray- 
mond de  Trincavel,  the  last  of  the  viscounts  of 
Beziers  ;  and  of  this  siege  M.  Viollet-le-Duc  gives 
a  long  and  minute  account,  which  the  visitor  who 
has  a  head  for  such  things  may  follow,  with  the 
brochure  in  hand,  on  the  fortifications  themselves. 
The  young  Raymond  de  Trincavel,  baffled  and 
repulsed,  retired  at  the  end  of  twenty-four  days. 
Saint  Louis  and  Philip  the  Bold,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  multiphed  the  defenses  of  Carcassonne, 
which  was  one  of  the  bulwarks  of  their  kingdom 
on  the  Spanish  quarter  ;  and  from  this  time  forth, 
being  regarded  as  impregnable,  the  place  had 
nothing  to  fear.  It  was  not  even  attacked  ;  and 
when  in  1355  Edward  the  Black  Prince  marched 
into  it  the  inhabitants  had  opened  the  gates  to  the 
conqueror  before  whom  all  Languedoc  was  pro- 


202     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

strate.  I  am  not  one  of  those  who,  as  I  said  just 
now,  have  a  head  for  such  things,  and  having 
extracted  these  few  facts  had  made  all  the  use 
of  M.  Viollet-le-Duc's  pamphlet  of  which  I  was 
capable. 

I  have  mentioned  that  my  obliging  friend  the 
amoureux-fou  handed  me  over  to  the  doorkeeper 
of  the  citadel.  I  should  add  that  I  was  at  first 
committed  to  the  wife  of  this  functionary,  a  stout 
peasant-woman,  who  took  a  key  down  from  a  nail, 
conducted  me  to  a  postern  door,  and  ushered  me 
into  the  presence  of  her  husband.  Having  just 
begun  his  rounds  with  a  party  of  four  persons,  he 
was  not  many  steps  in  advance.  I  added  myself 
perforce  to  this  party,  which  was  not  brilliantly 
composed,  except  that  two  of  its  members  were 
gendarmes  in  full  toggery,  who  announced  in  the 
course  of  our  tour  that  they  had  been  stationed 
for  a  year  at  Carcassonne  and  had  never  before 
had  the  curiosity  to  come  up  to  the  Cite.  There 
was  something  brilliant^  certainly  in  that.  The 
gardien  was  an  extraordinarily  typical  little 
Frenchman,  who  struck  me  even  more  forcibly 
than  the  wonders  of  the  inner  enceinte ;  and  as  I 
am  bound  to  assume,  at  whatever  cost  to  my  liter- 
ary vanity,  that  there  is  not  the  slightest  danger 
of  his  reading  these  remarks,  I  may  treat  him  as 
public  property.     With  his  diminutive  stature  and 


'\W'  i  ^ 


^^^'I'N'Hr 


CARCASSONNE 


CARCASSONNE  203 

his  perpendicular  spirit,  his  flushed  face,  expressive, 
protuberant  eyes,  high,  peremptory  voice,  extreme 
volubiKty,  lucidity  and  neatness  of  utterance,  he 
reminded  me  of  the  gentry  who  figure  in  the 
revolutions  of  his  native  land.  If  he  was  not  a 
fierce  little  Jacobin  he  ought  to  have  been,  for  I  am 
sure  there  were  many  men  of  his  pattern  on  the 
Committee  of  Public  Safety.  He  knew  absolutely 
what  he  was  about,  understood  the  place  thor- 
oughly, and  constantly  reminded  his  audience  of 
what  he  himself  had  done  in  the  way  of  excavations 
and  reparations.  He  described  himself  as  the 
brother  of  the  architect  of  the  work  actually  going 
forward  (that  which  has  been  done  since  the  death 
of  M.  Viollet-le-Duc,  I  suppose  he  meant),  and  this 
fact  was  more  illustrative  than  all  the  others.  It 
reminded  me,  as  one  is  reminded  at  every  turn,  of 
the  democratic  conditions  of  French  life  :  a  man  of 
the  people,  with  a  wife  en  bonnet,  extremely  intelli- 
gent, full  of  special  knowledge,  and  yet  remaining 
essentially  of  the  people,  and  showing  his  intelli- 
gence with  a  kind  of  ferocity,  of  defiance.  Such 
a  personage  helps  one  to  understand  the  red  radi- 
calism of  France,  the  revolutions,  the  barricades, 
the  sinister  passion  for  theories.  (I  do  not,  of 
course,  take  upon  myself  to  say  that  the  individual 
I  describe  —  who  can  know  nothing  of  the  liber- 
ties I  am  taking  with  him  —  is  actually  devoted  to 


204    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

these  ideals  ;  I  only  mean  that  many  such  devo- 
tees must  have  his  qualities.)  In  just  the  nuame 
that  I  have  tried  to  indicate  here  it  is  a  terrible 
pattern  of  man.  Permeated  in  a  high  degree  by 
civilization,  it  is  yet  untouched  by  the  desire 
which  one  finds  in  the  Englishman,  in  proportion 
as  he  rises  in  the  world,  to  approximate  to  the 
figure  of  the  gentleman.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
nettet^y  a  faculty  of  exposition,  such  as  the  Eng- 
lish gentleman  is  rarely  either  blessed  or  cursed 
with. 

This  brilliant,  this  suggestive  warden  of  Carcas- 
sonne marched  us  about  for  an  hour,  haranguing, 
explaining,  illustrating  as  he  went ;  it  was  a  com- 
plete little  lecture,  such  as  might  have  been  de- 
livered at  the  Lowell  Institute,  on  the  manner 
in  which  a  first-rate  place  forte  used  to  be  at- 
tacked and  defended.  Our  peregrinations  made 
it  very  clear  that  Carcassonne  was  impregnable  ; 
it  is  impossible  to  imagine  without  having  seen 
them  such  refinements  of  immurement,  such  in- 
genuities of  resistance.  We  passed  along  the 
battlements  and  chemins  de  rondcy  ascended  and 
descended  towers,  crawled  under  arches,  peered 
out  of  loopholes,  lowered  ourselves  into  dungeons, 
halted  in  all  sorts  of  tight  places  while  the  pur- 
pose of  something  or  other  was  described  to  us. 
It  was  very  curious,  very  interesting ;  above  all  it 


CARCASSONNE  205 

was  very  pictorial  and  involved  perpetual  peeps 
into  the  little  crooked,  crumbling,  sunny,  grassy, 
empty  Cite.  In  places,  as  you  stand  upon  it,  the 
great  towered  and  embattled  enceinte  produces  an 
illusion  ;  it  looks  as  if  it  were  still  equipped  and 
defended.  One  vivid  challenge,  at  any  rate,  it 
flings  down  before  you  ;  it  calls  upon  you  to  make 
up  your  mind  on  the  matter  of  restoration.  For 
myself  I  have  no  hesitation  ;  I  prefer  in  every 
case  the  ruined,  however  ruined,  to  the  recon- 
structed, however  splendid.  What  is  left  is  more 
precious  than  what  is  added  ;  the  one  is  history, 
the  other  is  fiction  ;  and  I  like  the  former  the 
better  of  the  two  —  it  is  so  much  more  romantic. 
One  is  positive,  so  far  as  it  goes ;  the  other  fills 
up  the  void  with  things  more  dead  than  the  void 
itself,  inasmuch  as  they  have  never  had  life. 
After  that  I  am  free  to  say  that  the  restoration  of 
Carcassonne  is  a  splendid  achievement.  The  lit- 
tle custodian  dismissed  us  at  last,  after  having,  as 
usual,  inducted  us  into  the  inevitable  repository 
of  photographs.  These  photographs  are  a  great 
nuisance  all  over  the  Midi.  They  are  exceedingly 
bad  for  the  most  part ;  and  the  worst  —  those  in 
the  form  of  the  hideous  little  album-panorama  — 
are  thrust  upon  you  at  every  turn.  They  are  a 
kind  of  tax  that  you  must  pay  ;  the  best  way  is  to 
pay  to  be  let  off.     It  was  not  to  be  denied  that 


2o6     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

there  was  a  relief  in  separating  from  our  accom- 
plished guide,  whose  manner  of  imparting  infor- 
mation reminded  me  of  the  energetic  process  by 
which  I  had  seen  mineral  waters  bottled.  All  this 
while  the  afternoon  had  grown  more  lovely ;  the 
sunset  had  deepened,  the  horizon  of  hills  grown 
purple ;  the  mass  of  the  Canigou  became  more 
delicate,  yet  more  distinct.  The  day  had  so  far 
faded  that  the  interior  of  the  little  cathedral  was 
wrapped  in  twilight,  into  which  the  glowing  win- 
dows projected  something  of  their  color.  This 
church  has  high  beauty  and  value,  but  I  will  spare 
the  reader  a  presentation  of  details  which  I  myself 
had  no  opportunity  to  master.  It  consists  of  a 
romanesque  nave,  of  the  end  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury, and  a  Gothic  choir  and  transepts  of  the  be- 
ginning of  the  fourteenth  ;  and,  shut  up  in  its 
citadel  like  a  precious  casket  in  a  cabinet,  it  seems 
—  or  seemed  at  that  hour  —  to  have  a  sort  of 
double  sanctity.  After  leaving  it  and  passing  out 
of  the  two  circles  of  walls,  I  treated  myself,  in  the 
most  infatuated  manner,  to  another  walk  round 
the  Cit6.  It  is  certainly  this  general  impression 
that  is  most  striking  —  the  impression  from  out- 
side, where  the  whole  place  detaches  itself  at  once 
from  the  landscape.  In  the  warm  southern  dusk 
it  looked  more  than  ever  like  a  city  in  a  fairy  tale. 
To  make  the  thing  perfect,  a  white  young  moon. 


CARCASSONNE  207 

in  its  first  quarter,  came  out  and  hung  just  over 
the  dark  silhouette.  It  was  hard  to  come  away 
—  to  incommode  one's  self  for  anything  so  vulgar 
as  a  railway  train  ;  I  would  gladly  have  spent  the 
evening  in  revolving  round  the  walls  of  Carcas- 
sonne. But  I  had  in  a  measure  engaged  to  pro- 
ceed to  Narbonne,  and  there  was  a  certain  magic 
in  that  name  which  gave  me  strength  —  Nar- 
bonne, the  richest  city  in  Roman  Gaul. 


XXIV 


NARBONNE 


AT  Narbonne  I  took  up  my  abode  at  the 
house  of  a  scrnirier  m^canicicuy  and  was 
very  thankful  for  the  accommodation.  It  was  my 
misfortune  to  arrive  at  this  ancient  city  late  at 
night,  on  the  eve  of  market-day ;  and  market-day 
at  Narbonne  is  a  very  serious  affair.  The  inns,  on 
this  occasion,  are  stuffed  with  wine-dealers ;  for  the 
country  round  about,  dedicated  almost  exclusively 


NARBONNE  209 

to  Bacchus,  has  hitherto  escaped  the  phylloxera. 
This  deadly  enemy  of  the  grape  is  encamped  over 
the  Midi  in  a  hundred  places  ;  blighted  vineyards 
and  ruined  proprietors  being  quite  the  order  of 
the  day.  The  signs  of  distress  are  more  frequent 
as  you  advance  into  Provence,  many  of  the  vines 
being  laid  under  water  in  the  hope  of  washing  the 
plague  away.  There  are  healthy  regions  still, 
however,  and  the  vintners  find  plenty  to  do  at 
Narbonne.  The  traffic  in  wine  appeared  to  be 
the  sole  thought  of  the  Narbonnais ;  every  one  I 
spoke  to  had  something  to  say  about  the  harvest 
of  gold  that  bloomed  under  its  influence.  "  C'est 
inoui,  monsieur,  I'argent  qu'il  y  a  dans  ce  pays. 
Des  gens  a  qui  la  vente  de  leur  vin  rapporte 
jusqu'a  500,000  francs  par  an."  That  little  speech 
addressed  to  me  by  a  gentleman  at  the  inn  gives 
the  note  of  these  revelations.  It  must  be  said 
that  there  was  little  in  the  appearance  either  of 
the  town  or  of  its  population  to  suggest  the  pos- 
session of  such  treasures.  Narbonne  is  a  sale 
petite  ville  in  all  the  force  of  the  term,  and  my 
first  impression  on  arriving  there  was  an  extreme 
regret  that  I  had  not  remained  for  the  night  at 
the  lovely  Carcassonne.  My  journey  from  that 
delectable  spot  lasted  a  couple  of  hours  and  was 
performed  in  darkness  —  a  darkness  not  so  dense, 
however,  but  that  I  was  able  to  make  out,  as  we 


2IO    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

passed  it,  the  great  figure  of  Beziers,  whose  ancient 
roofs  and  towers,  clustered  on  a  goodly  hilltop, 
looked  as  fantastic  as  you  please.  I  know  not 
what  appearance  Beziers  may  present  by  day ;  but 
by  night  it  has  quite  the  grand  air.  On  issuing 
from  the  station  at  Narbonne  I  found  that  the 
only  vehicle  in  waiting  was  a  kind  of  bastard  tram- 
car,  a  thing  shaped  as  if  it  had  been  meant  to  go 
upon  rails;  that  is,  equipped  with  small  wheels, 
placed  beneath  it,  and  with  a  platform  at  either 
end,  but  destined  to  rattle  over  the  stones  like  the 
most  vulgar  of  omnibuses.  To  complete  the  oddity 
of  this  conveyance,  it  was  under  the  supervision, 
not  of  a  conductor,  but  of  a  conductress.  A  fair 
young  woman  with  a  pouch  suspended  from  her 
girdle  had  command  of  the  platform  ;  and  as  soon 
as  the  car  was  full  she  jolted  us  into  the  town 
through  clouds  of  the  thickest  dust  I  ever  have 
swallowed.  I  have  had  occasion  to  speak  of  the 
activity  of  women  in  France  —  of  the  way  they 
are  always  in  the  ascendant ;  and  here  was  a  sig- 
nal example  of  their  general  utility.  The  young 
lady  I  have  mentioned  conveyed  her  whole  com- 
pany to  the  wretched  little  H6tel  de  France, 
where  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  some  of  them  found 
a  lodging.  For  myself  I  was  informed  that  the 
place  was  crowded  from  cellar  to  attic  and  that  its 
inmates  were  sleeping  three  or  four  in  a  room. 


NARBONNE  211 

At  Carcassonne  I  should  have  had  a  bad  bed,  but 
at  Narbonne,  apparently,  I  was  to  have  no  bed  at 
all.  I  passed  an  hour  or  two  of  flat  suspense 
while  fate  settled  the  question  of  whether  I  should 
go  on  to  Perpignan,  return  to  Beziers,  or  still  dis- 
cover a  modest  couch  at  Narbonne.  I  shall  not 
have  suffered  in  vain,  however,  if  my  example 
serves  to  deter  other  travelers  from  alighting  un- 
announced at  that  city  on  a  Wednesday  evening. 
The  retreat  to  Beziers,  not  attempted  in  time, 
proved  impossible,  and  I  was  assured  that  at  Per- 
pignan, which  I  should  not  reach  till  midnight, 
the  affluence  of  wine-dealers  was  not  less  than  at 
Narbonne.  I  interviewed  every  hostess  in  the 
town  and  got  no  satisfaction  but  distracted  shrugs. 
Finally,  at  an  advanced  hour,  one  of  the  servants 
of  the  Hotel  de  France,  where  I  had  attempted  to 
dine,  came  to  me  in  triumph  to  proclaim  that  he 
had  secured  for  me  a  charming  apartment  in  a 
maison  bourgeoise.  I  took  possession  of  it  grate- 
fully, in  spite  of  its  having  an  entrance  like  a 
stable  and  being  pervaded  by  an  odor  compared 
with  which  that  of  a  stable  would  have  been  de- 
licious. As  I  have  mentioned,  my  landlord  was  a 
locksmith,  and  he  had  strange  machines  which 
rumbled  and  whirred  in  the  rooms  below  my  own. 
Nevertheless  I  slept,  and  I  dreamed  of  Carcas- 
sonne. It  was  better  to  do  that  than  to  dream  of 
the  Hotel  de  France. 


212     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

I  was  obliged  to  cultivate  relations  with  the 
cuisine  of  this  establishment.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  mMdional ;  indeed,  both  the  dirty 
little  inn  and  Narbonne  at  large  seemed  to  me  to 
have  the  infirmities  of  the  south  without  its  usual 
graces.  Narrow,  noisy,  shabby,  belittered,  and  en- 
cumbered, filled  with  clatter  and  chatter,  the  Hotel 
de  France  would  have  been  described  in  perfection 
by  Alphonse  Daudet.  For  what  struck  me  above 
all  in  it  was  the  note  of  the  Midi  as  he  has  repre- 
sented it  — the  sound  of  universal  talk.  The  land- 
lord sat  at  supper  with  sundry  friends  in  a  kind  of 
glass  cage,  with  a  genial  indifference  to  arriving 
guests ;  the  waiters  tumbled  over  the  loose  lug- 
gage in  the  hall ;  the  travelers  who  had  been 
turned  away  leaned  gloomily  against  doorposts ; 
and  the  landlady,  surrounded  by  confusion,  uncon- 
scious of  responsibility,  and  animated  only  by  the 
spirit  of  conversation,  bandied  high-voiced  compli- 
ments with  the  voyagetirs  de  commerce.  At  ten 
o'clock  in  the  morning  there  was  a  tabic  d'hote  for 
breakfast  —  a  wonderful  repast  which  overflowed 
into  every  room  and  pervaded  the  whole  establish- 
ment. I  sat  down  with  a  hundred  hungry  mar- 
keters, fat,  brown,  greasy  men,  with  a  good  deal 
of  the  rich  soil  of  Languedoc  adhering  to  their 
hands  and  their  boots.  I  mention  the  latter  ar- 
ticles because  they  almost  put  them  on  the  table. 


NARBONNE  213 

It  was  very  hot,  and  there  were  swarms  of  flies ; 
the  viands  had  the  strongest  odor ;  there  was  in 
particular  a  horrible  mixture  known  as  gras-dotcble, 
a  light  gray,  glutinous,  nauseating  mess,  which  my 
companions  devoured  in  large  quantities.  A  man 
opposite  to  me  had  the  dirtiest  fingers  I  ever  saw ; 
a  collection  of  fingers  which  in  England  would 
have  excluded  him  from  a  farmers'  ordinary.  The 
conversation  was  mainly  bucolic ;  though  a  part 
of  it,  I  remember,  at  the  table  at  which  I  sat,  con- 
sisted of  a  discussion  as  to  whether  or  no  the 
maid-servant  were  sage  —  a  discussion  which  went 
on  under  the  nose  of  this  young  lady,  as  she  car- 
ried about  the  dreadful  gras-doublc,  and  to  which 
she  contributed  the  most  convincing  blushes.  It 
was  thoroughly  meridional. 

In  going  to  Narbonne  I  had  of  course  counted 
upon  Roman  remains ;  but  when  I  went  forth  in 
search  of  them  I  perceived  that  I  had  hoped  too 
fondly.  There  is  really  nothing  in  the  place  to 
speak  of;  that  is,  on  the  day  of  my  visit  there  was 
nothing  but  the  market,  which  was  in  complete 
possession.  "This  intricate,  curious,  but  lifeless 
town,"  Murray  calls  it ;  yet  to  me  it  appeared 
overflowing  with  life.  Its  streets  are  mere  crooked, 
dirty  lanes,  bordered  with  perfectly  insignificant 
houses  ;  but  they  were  filled  with  the  same  clatter 
and  chatter  that  I  had  found  at  the  hotel.     The 


214     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

market  was  held  partly  in  the  little  square  of  the 
hotel  de  ville,  a  structure  which  a  flattering  wood- 
cut in  the  Guide-Joanne  had  given  me  a  desire  to 
behold.  The  reality  was  not  impressive,  the  old 
color  of  the  front  having  been  completely  restored 
away.  Such  interest  as  it  superficially  possesses 
it  derives  from  a  fine  mediaeval  tower  which  rises 
beside  it  with  turrets  at  the  angles  —  always  a 
picturesque  thing.  The  rest  of  the  market  was 
held  in  another  place,  still  shabbier  than  the  first, 
which  lies  beyond  the  canal.  The  Canal  du  Midi 
flows  through  the  town,  and,  spanned  at  this  point 
by  a  small  suspension-bridge,  presented  a  certain 
sketchability.  On  the  further  side  were  the  ven- 
dors and  chafferers  —  old  women  under  awnings 
and  big  umbrellas,  rickety  tables  piled  high  with 
fruit,  white  caps  and  brown  faces,  blouses,  sabots, 
donkeys.  Beneath  this  picture  was  another  —  a 
long  row  of  washerwomen,  on  their  knees  on  the 
edge  of  the  canal,  pounding  and  wringing  the  dirty 
linen  of  Narbonne — no  great  quantity,  to  judge 
by  the  costume  of  the  people.  Innumerable  rusty 
men,  scattered  all  over  the  place,  were  buying  and 
selling  wine,  straddling  about  in  pairs,  in  groups, 
with  their  hands  in  their  pockets,  and  packed  to- 
gether at  the  doors  of  the  caf^s.  They  were 
mostly  fat  and  brown  and  unshaven  ;  they  ground 
their  teeth  as  they  talked  ;  they  were  very  itK^ri- 
dionatix. 


^■H       ':  >^-        T^    -    -^. 


NARBONNE,   THE   CATHEDRAL   AND   HOTEL   DE   VILLE 


NARBONNE  215 

The  only  two  lions  at  Narbonne  are  the  cathe- 
dral and  the  museum,  the  latter  of  which  is  quar- 
tered in  the  hotel  de  ville.  The  cathedral,  closely- 
shut  in  by  houses  and  with  the  west  front  under- 
going repairs,  is  singular  in  two  respects.  It  con- 
sists exclusively  of  a  choir,  which  is  of  the  end  of 
the  thirteenth  century  and  the  beginning  of  the 
next,  and  of  great  magnificence.  There  is  ab- 
solutely nothing  else.  This  choir,  of  extraordinary 
elevation,  forms  the  whole  church.  I  sat  there  a 
good  while ;  there  was  no  other  visitor.  I  had 
taken  a  great  dislike  to  poor  little  Narbonne, 
which  struck  me  as  sordid  and  overheated,  and 
this  place  seemed  to  extend  to  me,  as  in  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  the  privilege  of  sanctuary.  It  is  a  very 
solemn  corner.  The  other  peculiarity  of  the  ca- 
thedral is  that,  externally,  it  bristles  with  battle- 
ments, having  anciently  formed  part  of  the  defenses 
of  the  archeveche,  which  is  beside  it  and  which  con- 
nects it  with  the  hotel  de  ville.  This  combination 
of  the  church  and  the  fortress  is  very  curious,  and 
during  the  Middle  Ages  was  not  without  its  value. 
The  palace  of  the  former  archbishops  of  Narbonne 
(the  hotel  de  ville  of  to-day  forms  part  of  it)  was 
both  an  asylum  and  an  arsenal  during  the  hideous 
wars  by  which  all  Languedoc  was  ravaged  in  the 
thirteenth  century.  The  whole  mass  of  buildings 
is  jammed  together  in  a  manner  that  from  certain 


2i6     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

points  of  view  makes  it  far  from  apparent  which 
feature  is  which.  The  museum  occupies  several 
chambers  at  the  top  of  the  hotel  de  ville  and  is 
not  an  imposing  collection.  It  was  closed ;  but  I 
induced  the  portress  to  let  me  in  —  a  silent,  cadav- 
erous person,  in  a  black  coif,  like  a  begiiine,  who 
sat  knitting  in  one  of  the  windows  while  I  went 
the  rounds.  The  number  of  Roman  fragments  is 
small,  and  their  quality  is  not  the  finest ;  I  must 
add  that  this  impression  was  hastily  gathered. 
There  is  indeed  a  work  of  art  in  one  of  the  rooms 
which  creates  a  presumption  in  favor  of  the  place 
—  the  portrait  (rather  a  good  one)  of  a  citizen  of 
Narbonne,  whose  name  I  forget,  who  is  described 
as  having  devoted  all  his  time  and  his  intelligence 
to  collecting  the  objects  by  which  the  visitor  is 
surrounded.  This  excellent  man  was  a  connoisseur, 
and  the  visitor  is  doubtless  often  an  ignoramus. 


XXV 

MONTPELLIER 

"  Cette,  with  its  glistening  houses  white, 
Curves  with  the  curving  beach  away 
To  where  the  Hghthouse  beacons  bright, 
Far  in  the  bay." 

THAT  stanza  of  Matthew  Arnold's,  which  I 
happened  to  remember,  gave  a  certain  im- 
portance to  the  half-hour  I  spent  in  the  buffet  of 
the  station  at  Cette  while  I  waited  for  the  train  to 
Montpellier.  I  had  left  Narbonne  in  the  after- 
noon, and  by  the  time  I  reached  Cette  the  dark- 
ness had  descended.  I  therefore  missed  the  sight 
of  the  glistening  houses,  and  had  to  console  my- 
self with  that  of  the  beacon  in  the  bay,  as  well  as 
with  a  bouillon  of  which  I  partook  at  the  buffet 
aforesaid ;  for,  since  the  morning,  I  had  not  ven- 
tured to  return  to  the  table  d'hote  at  Narbonne. 
The  Hotel  Nevet,  at  Montpellier,  which  I  reached 
an  hour  later,  has  an  ancient  renown  all  over  the 
south  of  France  —  advertises  itself,  I  believe,  as 
le  plus  vaste  du  midi.  It  seemed  to  me  the  model 
of  a  good  provincial  inn  ;  a  big  rambling,  creaking 
establishment,  with  brown,  labyrinthine  corridors. 


2i8     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

a  queer  old  open-air  vestibule,  into  which  the  dili- 
gence, in  the  bon  temps,  used  to  penetrate,  and  an 
hospitality  more  expressive  than  that  of  the  new 
caravansaries.  It  dates  from  the  days  when  Mont- 
pellier  was  still  accounted  a  fine  winter  residence 
for  people  with  weak  lungs  ;  and  this  rather  melan- 
choly tradition,  together  with  the  former  celebrity 
of  the  school  of  medicine  still  existing  there,  but 
from  which  the  glory  has  departed,  helps  to  ac- 
count for  its  combination  of  high  antiquity  and  vast 
proportions.  The  old  hotels  were  usually  more 
concentrated ;  but  the  school  of  medicine  passed 
for  one  of  the  attractions  of  Montpellier.  Long 
before  Mentone  was  discovered  or  Colorado  in- 
vented, British  invalids  traveled  down  through 
France  in  the  post-chaise  or  the  public  coach,  to 
spend  their  winters  in  the  wonderful  place  which 
boasted  both  a  climate  and  a  faculty.  The  air  is 
mild,  no  doubt,  but  there  are  refinements  of  mild- 
ness which  were  not  then  suspected  and  which  in 
a  more  analytic  age  have  carried  the  annual  wave 
far  beyond  Montpellier.  The  place  is  charming 
all  the  same ;  and  it  served  the  purpose  of  John 
Locke,  who  made  a  long  stay  there,  between  1675 
and  1679,  and  became  acquainted  with  a  noble 
fellow-visitor.  Lord  Pembroke,  to  whom  he  dedi- 
cated the  famous  Essay.  There  are  places  that 
please  without  your  being  able  to  say  wherefore, 


MONTPELLIER  219 

and  Montpellier  is  one  of  the  number.  It  has 
some  charming  views,  from  the  great  promenade 
of  the  Peyrou ;  but  its  position  is  not  strikingly 
fine.  Beyond  this  it  contains  a  good  museum  and 
the  long  fagades  of  its  school,  but  these  are  its 
only  definite  treasures.  Its  cathedral  struck  me 
as  quite  the  weakest  I  had  seen,  and  I  remember 
no  other  monument  that  made  up  for  it.  The 
place  has  neither  the  gayety  of  a  modern  nor  the 
solemnity  of  an  ancient  town,  and  it  is  agreeable 
as  certain  women  are  agreeable  who  are  neither 
beautiful  nor  clever.  An  Italian  would  remark 
that  it  is  sympathetic  ;  a  German  would  admit  that 
it  is  geiniitJilich.  I  spent  two  days  there,  mostly 
in  the  rain,  and  even  under  these  circumstances  I 
carried  away  a  kindly  impression.  I  think  the 
Hotel  Nevet  had  something  to  do  with  it,  and  the 
sentiment  of  relief  with  which,  in  a  quiet,  even  a 
luxurious,  room  that  looked  out  on  a  garden,  I  re- 
flected that  I  had  washed  my  hands  of  Narbonne. 
The  phylloxera  has  destroyed  the  vines  in  the 
country  that  surrounds  Montpellier,  and  at  that 
moment  I  was  capable  of  rejoicing  in  the  thought 
that  I  should  not  breakfast  with  vintners. 

The  gem  of  the  place  is  the  Musee  Fabre,  one 
of  the  best  collections  of  paintings  in  a  provincial 
city.  Francois  Fabre,  a  native  of  Montpellier, 
died  there  in  1837,  after  having  spent  a  consider- 


220    A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

able  part  of  his  life  in  Italy,  where  he  had  col- 
lected a  good  many  valuable  pictures  and  some 
very  poor  ones,  the  latter  class  including  several 
from  his  own  hand.  He  was  the  hero  of  a  remark- 
able episode,  having  succeeded  no  less  a  person 
than  Vittorio  Alfieri  in  the  affections  of  no  less 
a  person  than  Louise  de  Stolberg,  Countess  of 
Albany,  widow  of  no  less  a  person  than  Charles 
Edward  Stuart,  the  second  pretender  to  the  Brit- 
ish crown.  Surely  no  woman  ever  was  associated 
sentimentally  with  three  figures  more  diverse  — 
a  disqualified  sovereign,  an  Italian  dramatist,  and 
a  bad  French  painter.  The  productions  of  M. 
Fabre,  who  followed  in  the  steps  of  David,-  bear 
the  stamp  of  a  cold  mediocrity  ;  there  is  not  much 
to  be  said  even  for  the  portrait  of  the  genial  coun- 
tess (her  life  has  been  written  by  M.  Saint-Ren^- 
Taillandier,  who  depicts  her  as  delightful),  which 
hangs  in  Florence,  in  the  gallery  of  the  Uffizzi, 
and  makes  a  pendant  to  a  likeness  of  Alfieri  by 
the  same  author.  Stendhal,  in  his  "M^moires 
d'un  Touriste,"  says  that  this  work  of  art  repre- 
sents her  as  a  cook  who  has  pretty  hands.  I 
am  delighted  to  have  an  opportunity  of  quoting 
Stendhal,  whose  two  volumes  of  the  **  Memoires 
d'un  Touriste  "  every  traveler  in  France  should 
carry  in  his  portmanteau.  I  have  had  this  oppor- 
tunity more  than  once,  for  I  have  met  him  at 


MONTPELLIER  221 

Tours,  at  Nantes,  at  Bourges ;  and  everywhere  he 
is  suggestive.  But  he  has  the  defect  that  he  is 
never  pictorial,  that  he  never  by  any  chance  makes 
an  image,  and  that  his  style  is  perversely  color- 
less, for  a  man  so  fond  of  contemplation.  His 
taste  is  often  singularly  false ;  it  is  the  taste  of 
the  early  years  of  the  present  century,  the  period 
that  produced  clocks  surmounted  with  sentimen- 
tal "subjects."  Stendhal  does  not  admire  these 
clocks,  but  he  almost  does.  He  admires  Domeni- 
chino  and  Guercino,  he  prizes  the  Bolognese  school 
of  painters  because  they  "spoke  to  the  soul."  He 
is  a  votary  of  the  new  classic,  is  fond  of  tall,  square, 
regular  buildings,  and  thinks  Nantes,  for  instance, 
full  of  the  "air  noble."  It  was  a  pleasure  to  me 
to  reflect  that  five-and-forty  years  ago  he  had 
alighted  in  that  city,  at  the  very  inn  in  which  I 
spent  a  night  and  which  looks  down  on  the  Place 
Graslin  and  the  theatre.  The  hotel  that  was  the 
best  in  1837  appears  to  be  the  best  to-day.  On 
the  subject  of  Touraine  Stendhal  is  extremely  re- 
freshing ;  he  finds  the  scenery  meagre  and  much 
overrated,  and  proclaims  his  opinion  with  perfect 
frankness.  He  does,  however,  scant  justice  to 
the  banks  of  the  Loire ;  his  want  of  appreciation 
of  the  picturesque  —  want  of  the  sketcher's  sense 
—  causes  him  to  miss  half  the  charm  of  a  land- 
scape which  is  nothing  if  not  "  quiet,"  as  a  painter 


222     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

would  say,  and  of  which  the  felicities  reveal  them- 
selves only  to  waiting  eyes.  He  even  despises 
the  Indre,  the  river  of  Madame  Sand.  The  "Me- 
moires  d'un  Touriste"  are  written  in  the  character 
of  a  commercial  traveler,  and  the  author  has  no- 
thing to  say  about  Chenonceaux  or  Chambord,  or 
indeed  about  any  of  the  chateaux  of  that  part  of 
France  ;  his  system  being  to  talk  only  of  the  large 
towns,  where  he  may  be  supposed  to  find  a  market 
for  his  goods.  It  was  his  ambition  to  pass  for  an 
ironmonger.  But  in  the  large  towns  he  is  usually 
excellent  company,  though  as  discursive  as  Sterne 
and  strangely  indifferent,  for  a  man  of  imagination, 
to  those  superficial  aspects  of  things  which  the 
poor  pages  now  before  the  reader  are  mainly  an 
attempt  to  render.  It  is  his  conviction  that  Al- 
fieri,  at  Florence,  bored  the  Countess  of  Albany 
terribly  ;  and  he  adds  that  the  famous  Gallophobe 
died  of  jealousy  of  the  little  painter  from  Mont- 
pellier.  The  Countess  of  Albany  left  her  property 
to  Fabre ;  and  I  suppose  some  of  the  pieces  in 
the  museum  of  his  native  town  used  to  hang  in 
the  sunny  saloons  of  that  fine  old  palace  on  the 
Arno  which  is  still  pointed  out  to  the  stranger  in 
Florence  as  the  residence  of  Alfieri. 

The  institution  has  had  other  benefactors,  not- 
ably a  certain  M.  Bruyas,  who  has  enriched  it  with 
an  extraordinary  number  of  portraits  of  himself. 


MONTPELLIER  223 

As  these^  however,  are  by  different  hands,  some 
of  them  distinguished,  we  may  suppose  that  it  was 
less  the  model  than  the  artists  to  whom  M.  Bruyas 
wished  to  give  publicity.  Easily  first  are  two 
large  specimens  of  David  Teniers,  which  are  in- 
comparable for  brilliancy  and  a  glowing  perfection 
of  execution.  I  have  a  weakness  for  this  singular 
genius,  who  combined  the  delicate  with  the  grov- 
eling, and  I  have  rarely  seen  richer  examples. 
Scarcely  less  valuable  is  a  Gerard  Dow  which 
hangs  near  them,  though  it  must  rank  lower  as 
having  kept  less  of  its  freshness.  This  Gerard 
Dow  did  me  good,  for  a  master  is  a  master,  what- 
ever he  may  paint.  It  represents  a  woman  paring 
carrots,  while  a  boy  before  her  exhibits  a  mouse- 
trap in  which  he  has  caught  a  frightened  victim. 
The  goodwife  has  spread  a  cloth  on  the  top  of  a 
big  barrel  which  serves  her  as  a  table,  and  on  this 
brown,  greasy  napkin,  of  which  the  texture  is 
wonderfully  rendered,  lie  the  raw  vegetables  she 
is  preparing  for  domestic  consumption.  Beside 
the  barrel  is  a  large  caldron  lined  with  copper, 
with  a  rim  of  brass.  The  way  these  things  are 
painted  brings  tears  to  the  eyes ;  but  they  give 
the  measure  of  the  Musee  Fabre,  where  two  spe- 
cimens of  Teniers  and  a  Gerard  Dow  are  the 
jewels.  The  Italian  pictures  are  of  small  value ; 
but  there  is  a  work  by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  said 


224     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN   FRANCE 

to  be  the  only  one  in  France  —  an  infant  Samuel 
in  prayer,  apparently  a  repetition  of  the  picture  in 
England  which  inspired  the  little  plaster  image, 
disseminated  in  Protestant  lands,  that  we  used  to 
admire  in  our  childhood.  Sir  Joshua,  somehow, 
was  an  eminently  Protestant  painter  ;  no  one  can 
forget  that,  who  in  the  National  Gallery  in  Lon- 
don has  looked  at  the  picture  in  which  he  repre- 
sents several  young  ladies  as  nymphs,  voluminously 
draped,  hanging  garlands  over  a  statue  —  a  picture 
suffused  indefinably  with  the  Anglican  spirit  and 
exasperating  to  a  member  of  one  of  the  Latin 
races.  It  is  an  odd  chance  therefore  that  has  led 
him  into  that  part  of  France  where  Protestants 
have  been  least  bieti  vus.  This  is  the  country  of 
the  dragonnades  of  Louis  XIV.  and  of  the  pastors 
of  the  desert.  From  the  garden  of  the  Peyrou, 
at  Montpellier,  you  may  see  the  hills  of  the  Ce- 
vennes,  to  which  they  of  the  religion  fled  for  safety 
and  out  of  which  they  were  hunted  and  harried. 

I  have  only  to.  add,  in  regard  to  the  Musee 
Fabre,  that  it  contains  the  portrait  of  its  founder  — 
a  little,  pursy,  fat-faced,  elderly  man,  whose  coun- 
tenance contains  few  indications  of  the  power 
that  makes  distinguished  victims.  He  is,  how- 
ever, just  such  a  personage  as  the  mind's  eye  sees 
walking  on  the  terrace  of  the  Peyrou  of  an  October 
afternoon  in  the  early  years  of  the  century  ;    a 


mLX 


MONTPELLIER  225 

plump  figure  in  a  chocolate-colored  coat  and  a  cu- 
lotte  that  exhibits  a  good  leg  —  a  culotte  provided 
with  a  watch-fob  from  which  a  heavy  seal  is  sus- 
pended. This  Peyrou  (to  come  to  it  at  last)  is  a 
wonderful  place,  especially  to  be  found  in  a  little 
provincial  city.  France  is  certainly  the  country 
of  towns  that  aim  at  completeness;  more  than 
in  other  lands  they  contain  stately  features  as  a 
matter  of  course.  We  should  never  have  ceased 
to  hear  about  the  Peyrou  if  fortune  had  placed  it 
at  a  Shrewsbury  or  a  Buffalo.  It  is  true  that  the 
place  enjoys  a  certain  celebrity  at  home,  which  it 
amply  deserves,  moreover  ;  for  nothing  could  be 
more  impressive  and  monumental.  It  consists  of 
an  "elevated  platform,"  as  Murray  says,  —  an  im- 
mense terrace  laid  out,  in  the  highest  part  of  the 
town,  as  a  garden,  and  commanding  in  all  direc- 
tions a  view  which  in  clear  weather  must  be  of  the 
finest.  I  strolled  there  in  the  intervals  of  show- 
ers and  saw  only  the  nearer  beauties  —  a  great 
pompous  arch  of  triumph  in  honor  of  Louis  XIV. 
(which  is  not,  properly  speaking,  in  the  garden, 
but  faces  it,  straddling  across  the  place  by  which 
you  approach  it  from  the  town),  an  equestrian 
statue  of  that  monarch  set  aloft  in  the  middle  of 
the  terrace,  and  a  very  exalted  and  complicated 
fountain,  which  forms  a  background  to  the  picture. 
This  fountain  gushes  from  a  kind  of   hydraulic 


226     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

temple,  or  chdteati  d'emc,  to  which  you  ascend  by 
broad  flights  of  steps,  and  which  is  fed  by  a  splen- 
did aqueduct,  stretched  in  the  most  ornamental 
and  unexpected  manner  across  the  neighboring 
valley.  All  this  work  dates  from  the  middle  of 
the  last  century.  The  combination  of  features  — 
the  triumphal  arch,  or  gate  ;  the  wide  fair  terrace, 
with  its  beautiful  view  ;  the  statue  of  the  grand 
monarch ;  the  big  architectural  fountain,  which 
would  not  surprise  one  at  Rome,  but  does  surprise 
one  at  Montpellier ;  and,  to  complete  the  effect, 
the  extraordinary  aqueduct,  charmingly  foreshort- 
ened —  all  this  is  worthy  of  a  capital,  of  a  little 
court-city.  The  whole  place,  with  its  repeated 
steps,  its  balustrades,  its  massive  and  plentiful 
stonework,  is  full  of  the  air  of  the  last  century  — 
sent  bien  son  dix4iuitUme  sihle ;  none  the  less 
so,  I  am  afraid,  that,  as  I  read  in  my  faithful 
Murray,  after  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes 
the  block,  the  stake,  the  wheel  had  been  erected 
here  for  the  benefit  of  the  desperate  Camisards. 


XXVI 


THE   PONT   DU   GARD 


IT  was  a  pleasure  to  feel  one's  self  in  Provence 
again  —  the  land  where  the  silver-gray  earth 
is  impregnated  with  the  light  of  the  sky.  To  cel- 
ebrate the  event,  as  soon  as  I  arrived  at  Nimes  I 
engaged  a  caleche  to  convey  me  to  the  Pont  du 
Gard.  The  day  was  yet  young  and  was  excep- 
tionally fair  ;  it  appeared  well,  for  a  longish  drive, 
to  take  advantage,  without  delay,  of  such  security. 
After  I  had  left  the  town  I  became  more  intimate 
with  that  Provengal  charm  which  I  had  already 
enjoyed  from  the  window  of  the  train  and  which 
glowed  in  the  sweet  sunshine  and  the  white  rocks 


228     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

and  lurked  in  the  smoke-puffs  of  the  little  olives. 
The  olive-trees  in  Provence  are  half  the  landscape. 
They  are  neither  so  tall,  so  stout,  nor  so  richly 
contorted  as  you  have  seen  them  beyond  the 
Alps ;  but  this  mild  colorless  bloom  seems  the 
very  texture  of  the  country.  The  road  from  Nimes, 
for  a  distance  of  fifteen  miles,  is  superb ;  broad 
enough  for  an  army  and  as  white  and  firm  as  a 
dinner-table.  It  stretches  away  over  undulations 
which  have  a  kind  of  rhythmic  value,  and  in  the 
curves  it  makes  through  the  wide,  free  country, 
where  there  is  never  a  hedge  or  a  wall  and  the  de- 
tail is  always  exquisite,  there  is  something  majestic, 
almost  processional.  Some  twenty  minutes  before 
I  reached  the  little  inn  that  marks  the  termination 
of  the  drive,  my  vehicle  met  with  an  accident  which 
just  missed  being  serious  and  which  engaged  the 
attention  of  a  gentleman  who,  followed  by  his 
groom  and  mounted  on  a  strikingly  handsome 
horse,  happened  to  ride  up  at  the  moment.  This 
young  man  who,  with  his  good  looks  and  charm- 
ing manner,  might  have  stepped  out  of  a  novel  of 
Octave  Feuillet,  gave  me  some  very  intelligent 
advice  in  reference  to  one  of  my  horses  that  had 
been  injured,  and  was  so  good  as  to  accompany 
me  to  the  inn,  with  the  resources  of  which  he  was 
acquainted,  to  see  that  his  recommendations  were 
carried  out.     The  result  of  our  interview  was  that 


THE    PONT    DU    GARD  229 

he  invited  me  to  come  and  look  at  a  small  but 
ancient  chateau  in  the  neighborhood,  which  he 
had  the  happiness  —  not  the  greatest  in  the  world, 
he  intimated  —  to  inhabit,  and  at  which  I  engaged 
to  present  myself  after  I  should  have  spent  an 
hour  at  the  Pont  du  Gard.  For  the  moment,  when 
we  separated,  I  gave  all  my  attention  to  that  great 
structure.  You  are  very  near  it  before  you  see 
it ;  the  ravine  it  spans  suddenly  opens  and  exhibits 
the  picture.  The  scene  at  this  point  grows  ex- 
tremely beautiful.  The  ravine  is  the  valley  of 
the  Gardon,  which  the  road  from  Nimes  has  fol- 
lowed some  time  without  taking  account  of  it,  but 
which,  exactly  at  the  right  distance  from  the  aque- 
duct, deepens  and  expands  and  puts  on  those 
characteristics  which  are  best  suited  to  give  it 
effect.  The  gorge  becomes  romantic,  still,  and 
solitary,  and,  with  its  white  rocks  and  wild  shrub- 
bery, hangs  over  the  clear-colored  river,  in  whose 
slow  course  there  is,  here  and  there,  a  deeper 
pool.  Over  the  valley,  from  side  to  side,  and  ever 
so  high  in  the  air,  stretch  the  three  tiers  of  the 
tremendous  bridge.  They  are  unspeakably  impos- 
ing, and  nothing  could  well  be  more  Roman.  The 
hugeness,  the  solidity,  the  unexpectedness,  the 
monumental  rectitude  of  the  whole  thing  leave 
you  nothing  to  say  —  at  the  time  —  and  make  you 
stand  gazing.     You  simply  feel  that  it  is  noble 


230     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

and  perfect,  that  it  has  the  quality  of  greatness. 
A  road,  branching  from  the  highway,  descends  to 
the  level  of  the  river  and  passes  under  one  of  the 
arches.  This  road  has  a  wide  margin  of  grass 
and  loose  stones,  which  slopes  upward  into  the 
bank  of  the  ravine.  You  may  sit  here  as  long  as 
you  please,  staring  up  at  the  light,  strong  piers ; 
the  spot  is  sufficiently  "wild,"  though  two  or 
three  stone  benches  have  been  erected  on  it.  I 
remained  there  an  hour  and  got  a  complete  im- 
pression ;  the  place  was  perfectly  soundless  and, 
for  the  time  at  least,  lonely ;  the  splendid  after- 
noon had  begun  to  fade,  and  there  was  a  fascina- 
tion in  the  object  I  had  come  to  see.  It  came  to 
pass  that  at  the  same  time  I  discovered  in  it  a 
certain  stupidity,  a  vague  brutality.  That  element 
is  rarely  absent  from  great  Roman  work,  which  is 
wanting  in  the  nice  adaptation  of  the  means  to 
the  end.  The  means  are  always  exaggerated  ;  the 
end  is  so  much  more  than  attained.  The  Roman 
rigor  was  apt  to  overshoot  the  mark,  and  I  sup- 
pose a  race  which  could  do  nothing  small  is  as 
defective  as  a  race  that  can  do  nothing  great.  Of 
this  Roman  rigor  the  Pont  du  Gard  is  an  admira- 
ble example.  It  would  be  a  great  injustice,  how- 
ever, not  to  insist  upon  its  beauty  —  a  kind  of 
manly  beauty,  that  of  an  object  constructed  not  to 
please  but  to  serve,  and  impressive  simply  from 


"^>?boo..^*_' 


ON   THE    PONT   DU   CARD 


THE   PONT   DU    GARD  231 

the  scale  on  which  it  carries  out  this  intention. 
The  number  of  arches  in  each  tier  is  different ; 
they  are  smaller  and  more  numerous  as  they  as- 
cend. The  preservation  of  the  thing  is  extraordi- 
nary ;  nothing  has  crumbled  or  collapsed ;  every 
feature  remains,  and  the  huge  blocks  of  stone,  of 
a  brownish-yellow  (as  if  they  had  been  baked  by 
the  Provencal  sun  for  eighteen  centuries),  pile 
themselves,  without  mortar  or  cement,  as  evenly 
as  the  day  they  were  laid  together.  All  this  to 
carry  the  water  of  a  couple  of  springs  to  a  little 
provincial  city !  The  conduit  on  the  top  has  re- 
tained its  shape  and  traces  of  the  cement  with 
which  it  was  lined.  When  the  vague  twilight 
began  to  gather,  the  lonely  valley  seemed  to  fill 
itself  with  the  shadow  of  the  Roman  name,  as  if 
the  mighty  empire  were  still  as  erect  as  the  sup- 
ports of  the  aqueduct ;  and  it  was  open  to  a  soli- 
tary tourist,  sitting  there  sentimental,  to  believe 
that  no  people  has  ever  been,  or  will  ever  be,  as 
great  as  that,  measured,  as  we  measure  the  great- 
ness of  an  individual,  by  the  push  they  gave  to 
what  they  undertook.  The  Pont  du  Gard  is  one 
of  the  three  or  four  deepest  impressions  they  have 
left ;  it  speaks  of  them  in  a  manner  with  which 
they  might  have  been  satisfied. 

I  feel  as  if  it  were  scarcely  discreet  to  indicate 
the  whereabouts  of  the  chateau  of  the  obliging 


232     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

young  man  I  had  met  on  the  way  from  Nimes ;  I 
must  content  myself  with  saying  that  it  nestled  in 
an  enchanting  valley  —  dans  le  fond,  as  they  say 
in  France  —  and  that  I  took  my  course  thither  on 
foot  after  leaving  the  Pont  du  Gard.  I  find  it 
noted  in  my  journal  as  "an  adorable  little  corner." 
The  principal  feature  of  the  place  is  a  couple  of 
very  ancient  towers,  brownish-yellow  in  hue,  and 
mantled  in  scarlet  Virginia-creeper.  One  of  these 
towers,  reputed  to  be  of  Saracenic  origin,  is  iso- 
lated, and  is  only  the  more  effective  ;  the  other  is 
incorporated  in  the  house,  which  is  delightfully 
fragmentary  and  irregular.  It  had  got  to  be  late 
by  this  time,  and  the  lonely  caste  I  looked  cre- 
puscular and  mysterious.  An  old  housekeeper 
was  sent  for,  who  showed  me  the  rambling  inte- 
rior ;  and  then  the  young  man  took  me  into  a  dim 
old  drawing-room,  which  had  no  less  than  four 
chimney-pieces,  all  unlighted,  and  gave  me  a  refec- 
tion of  fruit  and  sweet  wine.  When  I  praised  the 
wine  and  asked  him  what  it  was,  he  said  simply 
"  C'est  du  vin  de  ma  mere ! "  Throughout  my 
little  journey  I  had  never  yet  felt  myself  so  far 
from  Paris ;  and  this  was  a  sensation  I  enjoyed 
more  than  my  host,  who  was  an  involuntary  exile, 
consoling  himself  with  laying  out  a  manage  which 
he  showed  me  as  I  walked  away.  His  civility  was 
great,  and  I  was  greatly  touched  by  it.     On  my 


THE   PONT   DU    GARD  233 

way  back  to  the  little  inn  where  I  had  left  my 
vehicle  I  passed  the  Pont  du  Gard  and  took  an- 
other look  at  it.  Its  great  arches  made  windows 
for  the  evening  sky,  and  the  rocky  ravine,  with  its 
dusky  cedars  and  shining  river,  was  lonelier  than 
before.  At  the  inn  I  swallowed,  or  tried  to  swal- 
low, a  glass  of  horrible  wine  with  my  coachman ; 
after  which,  with  my  reconstructed  team,  I  drove 
back  to  Nimes  in  the  moonlight.  It  only  added 
a  more  solitary  whiteness  to  the  constant  sheen  of 
the  Provencal  landscape. 


XXVII 

AIGUES-MORTES 

THE  weather  the  next  day  was  equally  fair, 
so  that  it  seemed  an  imprudence  not  to 
make  sure  of  Aigues-Mortes.  Nimes  itself  could 
wait ;  at  a  pinch  I  could  attend  to  Nimes  in  the 
rain.  It  was  my  belief  that  Aigues-Mortes  was  a 
little  gem,  and  it  is  natural  to  desire  that  gems 
should  have  an  opportunity  to  sparkle.  This  is 
an  excursion  of  but  a  few  hours,  and  there  is  a 
little  friendly,  familiar,  dawdling  train  that  will 
convey  you,  in  time  for  a  noonday  breakfast,  to 
the  small  dead  town  where  the  blessed  Saint 
Louis  twice  embarked  for  the  crusades.  You 
may  get  back  to  Nimes  for  dinner  ;  the  run  —  or 
rather  the  walk,  for  the  train  does  n't  run  —  is  of 
about  an  hour.  I  found  the  little  journey  charm- 
ing and  looked  out  of  the  carriage  window,  on  my 
right,  at  the  distant  C^vennes,  covered  with  tones 
of  amber  and  blue,  and,  all  around,  at  vineyards 
red  with  the  touch  of  October.  The  grapes  were 
gone,  but  the  plants  had  a  color  of  their  own. 
Within  a  certain  distance  of  Aigues-Mortes  they 


AIGUES-MORTES  235 

give  place  to  wide  salt-marshes,  traversed  by  two 
canals ;  and  over  this  expanse  the  train  rumbles 
slowly  upon  a  narrow  causeway,  failing  for  some 
time,  though  you  know  you  are  near  the  object  of 
your  curiosity,  to  bring  you  to  sight  of  anything 
but  the  horizon.  Suddenly  it  appears,  the  towered 
and  embattled  mass,  lying  so  low  that  the  crest 
of  its  defenses  seems  to  rise  straight  out  of  the 
ground  ;  and  it  is  not  till  the  train  stops  close 
before  them  that  you  are  able  to  take  the  full 
measure  of  its  walls. 

Aigues-Mortes  stands  on  the  edge  of  a  wide 
etang-,  or  shallow  inlet  of  the  sea,  the  further  side 
of  which  is  divided  by  a  narrow  band  of  coast  from 
the  Gulf  of  Lyons.  Next  after  Carcassonne,  to 
which  it  forms  an  admirable  pendant,  it  is  the 
most  perfect  thing  of  the  kind  in  France.  It  has 
a  rival  in  the  person  of  Avignon,  but  the  ramparts 
of  Avignon  are  much  less  effective.  Like  Car- 
cassonne it  is  completely  surrounded  with  its  old 
fortifications  ;  and  if  they  are  far  simpler  in  charac- 
ter (there  is  but  one  circle),  they  are  quite  as  well 
preserved.  The  moat  has  been  filled  up,  and  the 
site  of  the  town  might  be  figured  by  a  billiard- 
table  without  pockets.  On  this  absolute  level, 
covered  with  coarse  grass,  Aigues-Mortes  presents 
quite  the  appearance  of  the  walled  town  that  a 
schoolboy  draws  upon  his  slate  or  that  we  see  in 


236     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

the  background  of  early  Flemish  pictures  —  a 
simple  parallelogram,  of  a  contour  almost  absurdly 
bare,  broken  at  intervals  by  angular  towers  and 
square  holes.  Such,  literally  speaking,  is  this 
delightful  little  city,  which  needs  to  be  seen  to 
tell  its  full  story.  It  is  extraordinarily  pictorial, 
and  if  it  is  a  very  small  sister  of  Carcassonne,  it 
has  at  least  the  essential  features  of  the  family. 
Indeed,  it  is  even  more  like  an  image  and  less  like 
a  reality  than  Carcassonne ;  for  by  position  and 
prospect  it  seems  even  more  detached  from  the 
life  of  the  present  day.  It  is  true  that  Aigues- 
Mortes  does  a  little  business  ;  it  sees  certain  bags 
of  salt  piled  into  barges  which  stand  in  a  canal 
beside  it  and  which  carry  their  cargo  into  actual 
places.  But  nothing  could  well  be  more  drowsy 
and  desultory  than  this  industry  as  I  saw  it 
practiced,  with  the  aid  of  two  or  three  brown 
peasants  and  under  the  eye  of  a  solitary  douanier, 
who  strolled  on  the  little  quay  beneath  the  western 
wall.  "C'est  bien  plaisant,  c'est  bien  paisible," 
said  this  worthy  man,  with  whom  I  had  some 
conversation ;  and  pleasant  and  peaceful  is  the 
place  indeed,  though  the  former  of  these  epithets 
may  suggest  an  element  of  gayety  in  which  Aigues- 
Mortes  is  deficient.  The  sand,  the  salt,  the  dull 
sea-view,  surround  it  with  a  bright,  quiet  melan- 
choly. There  are  fifteen  towers  and  nine  gates, 
five  of  which  are  on  the  southern  side,  overlooking 


f     ,  *  ^ 


AIGUES-MORTES  237 

the  water.  I  walked  all  round  the  place  three 
times  (it  does  n't  take  long),  but  lingered  most 
under  the  southern  wall,  where  the  afternoon 
light  slept  in  the  dreamiest,  sweetest  way.  I  sat 
down  on  an  old  stone  and  looked  away  to  the 
desolate  salt-marshes  and  the  still,  shining  surface 
of  the  etang ;  and,  as  I  did  so,  reflected  that  this 
was  a  queer  little  out-of-the-world  corner  to  have 
been  chosen,  in  the  great  dominions  of  either 
monarch,  for  that  pompous  interview  which  took 
place,  in  1538,  between  Francis  I.  and  Charles  V. 
It  was  also  not  easy  to  perceive  how  Louis  IX., 
when  in  1248  and  1270  he  started  for  the  Holy 
Land,  set  his  army  afloat  in  such  very  undeveloped 
channels.  An  hour  later  I  purchased  in  the  town 
a  little  pamphlet  by  M.  Marius  Topin,  who  under- 
takes to  explain  this  latter  anomaly  and  to  show 
that  there  is  water  enough  in  the  port,  as  we  may 
call  it  by  courtesy,  to  have  sustained  a  fleet  of 
crusaders.  I  was  unable  to  trace  the  channel 
that  he  points  out,  but  was  glad  to  believe  that, 
as  he  contends,  the  sea  has  not  retreated  from  the 
town  since  the  thirteenth  century.  It  was  com- 
fortable to  think  that  things  are  not  so  changed  as 
that.  M.  Topin  indicates  that  the  other  French 
ports  of  the  Mediterranean  were  not  then  dis- 
ponibles  and  that  Aigues-Mortes  was  the  most 
eligible  spot  for  an  embarkation. 

Behind  the  straight  walls  and  the  quiet  gates 


238     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

the  little  town  has  not  crumbled  like  the  Cit6  of 
Carcassonne.  It  can  hardly  be  said  to  be  alive; 
but  if  it  is  dead  it  has  been  very  neatly  embalmed. 
The  hand  of  the  restorer  rests  on  it  constantly  ; 
but  this  artist  has  not,  as  at  Carcassonne,  had 
miracles  to  accomplish.  The  interior  is  very  still 
and  empty,  with  small  stony,  whitewashed  streets 
tenanted  by  a  stray  dog,  a  stray  cat,  a  stray  old 
woman.  In  the  middle  is  a  little  place,  with  two 
or  three  cafes  decorated  by  wide  awnings  —  a 
little  place  of  which  the  principal  feature  is  a  very 
bad  bronze  statue  of  Saint  Louis  by  Pradier.  It 
is  almost  as  bad  as  the  breakfast  I  had  at  the  inn 
that  bears  the  name  of  that  pious  monarch.  You 
may  walk  round  the  enceinte  of  Aigues-Mortes 
both  outside  and  in  ;  but  you  may  not,  as  at  Car- 
cassonne, make  a  portion  of  this  circuit  on  the 
chemin  de  rotide,  the  little  projecting  footway 
attached  to  the  inner  face  of  the  battlements. 
This  footway,  wide  enough  only  for  a  single 
pedestrian,  is  in  the  best  order,  and  near  each  of 
the  gates  a  flight  of  steps  leads  up  to  it ;  but  a 
locked  gate  at  the  top  of  the  steps  makes  access 
impossible,  or  at  least  unlawful.  Aigues-Mortes, 
however,  has  its  citadel,  an  immense,  tower,  larger 
than  any  of  the  others,  a  little  detached  and  stand- 
ing at  the  northwest  angle  of  the  town.  I  called 
upon  the  casernier — the  custodian  of  the  walls  — 


NIMES,   THE   CATHEDRAL 


AIGUES--MORTES  239 

and  in  his  absence  I  was  conducted  through  this 
big  Tour  de  Constance  by  his  wife,  a  very  mild, 
meek  woman,  yellow  with  the  traces  of  fever  and 
ague  —  a  scourge  which,  as  might  be  expected  in  a 
town  whose  name  denotes  "  dead  waters,"  enters 
freely  at  the  nine  gates.  The  Tour  de  Constance 
is  of  extraordinary  girth  and  solidity,  divided  into 
three  superposed  circular  chambers,  with  very  fine 
vaults,  which  are  lighted  by  embrasures  of  pro- 
digious depth,  converging  to  windows  little  larger 
than  loopholes.  The  place  served  for  years  as  a 
prison  to  many  of  the  Protestants  of  the  south 
whom  the  revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  had 
exposed  to  atrocious  penalties,  and  the  annals  of 
these  dreadful  chambers  in  the  first  half  of  the 
last  century  were  written  in  tears  and  blood. 
Some  of  the  recorded  cases  of  long  confinement 
there  make  one  marvel  afresh  at  what  man  has 
inflicted  and  endured.  In  a  country  in  which  a 
policy  of  extermination  was  to  be  put  into  practice 
this  horrible  tower  was  an  obvious  resource.  From 
the  battlements  at  the  top,  which  is  surmounted 
by  an  old  disused  lighthouse,  you  see  the  little 
compact  rectangular  town,  which  looks  hardly 
bigger  than  a  garden-patch,  mapped  out  beneath 
you,  and  follow  the  plain  configuration  of  its  de- 
fenses. You  take  possession  of  it,  and  you  feel 
that  you  will  remember  it  always. 


XXVIII 

nImes 

AFTER  this  I  was  free  to  look  about  me  at 
Nimes,  and  I  did  so  with  such  attention 
as  the  place  appeared  to  require.  At  the  risk 
of  seeming  too  easily  and  too  frequently  disap- 
pointed, I  will  say  that  it  required  rather  less  than 
I  had  been  prepared  to  give.  It  is  a  town  of  three 
or  four  fine  features  rather  than  a  town  with,  as  I 
may  say,  a  general  figure.  In  general,  Nimes  is 
poor ;  its  only  treasures  are  its  Roman  remains, 
which  are  of  the  first  order.  The  new  French 
fashions  prevail  in  many  of  its  streets ;  the  old 
houses  are  paltry,  and  the  good  houses  are  new ; 


NIMES  241 

while  beside  my  hotel  rose  a  big  spick-and-span 
church,  which  had  the  oddest  air  of  having  been 
intended  for  Brooklyn  or  Cleveland.  It  is  true 
that  this  church  looked  out  on  a  square  completely 
French  —  a  square  of  a  fine  modern  disposition, 
flanked  on  one  side  by  a  c\a.ssica.\  pa/ats  de  justice 
embellished  with  trees  and  parapets  and  occupied 
in  the  centre  with  a  group  of  allegorical  statues 
such  as  one  encounters  only  in  the  cities  of 
France,  the  chief  of  these  being  a  colossal  figure 
by  Pradier  representing  Nimes.  An  English,  an 
American  town,  which  should  have  such  a  monu- 
ment, such  a  square,  as  this,  would  be  a  place  of 
great  pretensions  ;  but,  like  so  many  little  villes  de 
provmce  in  the  country  of  which  I  write,  Nimes 
is  easily  ornamental.  What  nobler  element  can 
there  be  than  the  Roman  baths  at  the  foot  of 
Mont  Cavalier  and  the  delightful  old  garden  that 
surrounds  them  .-*  All  that  quarter  of  Nimes  has 
every  reason  to  be  proud  of  itself ;  it  has  been 
revealed  to  the  world  at  large  by  copious  photo- 
graphy. A  clear,  abundant  stream  gushes  from 
the  foot  of  a  high  hill  (covered  with  trees  and  laid 
out  in  paths),  and  is  distributed  into  basins  which 
sufficiently  refer  themselves  to  the  period  that 
gave  them  birth  —  the  period  that  has  left  its 
stamp  on  that  pompous  Peyrou  which  we  admired 
at  Montpellier.     Here  are  the  same  terraces  and 


242     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

steps  and  balustrades,  and  a  system  of  water- 
works less  impressive  perhaps,  but  very  ingenious 
and  charming.  The  whole  place  is  a  mixture  of 
old  Rome  and  of  the  French  eighteenth  century ; 
for  the  remains  of  the  antique  baths  are  in  a 
measure  incorporated  in  the  modern  fountains.  In 
a  corner  of  this  umbrageous  precinct  stands  a 
small  Roman  ruin,  which  is  known  as  a  temple  of 
Diana,  but  was  more  apparently  a  nympJicetinty  and 
appears  to  have  had  a  graceful  connection  with 
the  adjacent  baths.  I  learn  from  Murray  that 
this  little  temple,  of  the  period  of  Augustus, ."  was 
reduced  to  its  present  state  of  ruin  in  1577  ;  "  the 
moment  at  which  the  townspeople,  threatened 
with  a  siege  by  the  troops  of  the  Crown,  partly 
demolished  it  lest  it  should  serve  as  a  cover  to 
the  enemy.  The  remains  are  very  fragmentary, 
but  they  serve  to  show  that  the  place  was  lovely. 
I  spent  half  an  hour  in  it  on  a  perfect  Sunday 
morning  (it  is  inclosed  by  a  high  grille,  carefully 
tended,  and  has  a  warden  of  its  own),  and  with 
the  help  of  my  imagination  tried  to  reconstruct 
a  little  the  aspect  of  things  in  the  Gallo-Roman 
days.  I  do  wrong  perhaps  to  say  that  I  tried ; 
from  a  flight  so  deliberate  I  should  have  shrunk. 
But  there  was  a  certain  contagion  of  antiquity  in 
the  air ;  and  among  the  ruins  of  baths  and  tem- 
ples, in  the  very  spot  where  the  aqueduct  that 


ROMAN    BATHS,    NIMES 


*  *     »»»»,,, 


NIMES  243 

crosses  the  Gardon  in  the  wondrous  manner  I  had 
seen  discharged  itself,  the  picture  of  a  splendid 
paganism  seemed  vaguely  to  glow.  Roman  baths 
—  Roman  baths  ;  those  words  alone  were  a  scene. 
Everything  was  changed  :  I  was  strolling  in  a 
jardin  franqais ;  the  bosky  slope  of  the  Mont 
Cavalier  (a  very  modest  mountain),  hanging  over 
the  place,  is  crowned  with  a  shapeless  tower, 
which  is  as  likely  to  be  of  mediaeval  as  of  antique 
origin ;  and  yet,  as  I  leaned  on  the  parapet  of  one 
of  the  fountains,  where  a  flight  of  curved  steps  (a 
hemicycle,  as  the  French  say)  descended  into  a 
basin  full  of  dark,  cool  recesses,  where  the  slabs  of 
the  Roman  foundations  gleam  through  the  clear 
green  water  —  as  in  this  attitude  I  surrendered 
myself  to  contemplation  and  reverie,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  I  touched  for  a  moment  the  ancient 
world.  Such  moments  are  illuminating,  and  the 
light  of  this  one  mingles,  in  my  memory,  with  the 
dusky  greenness  of  the  Jardin  de  la  Fontaine. 

The  fountain  proper  —  the  source  of  all  these 
distributed  waters  —  is  the  prettiest  thing  in  the 
world,  a  reduced  copy  of  Vaucluse.  It  gushes  up 
at  the  foot  of  the  Mont  Cavalier,  at  a  point  where 
that  eminence  rises  with  a  certain  cliff-like  effect, 
and,  like  other  springs  in  the  same  circumstances, 
appears  to  issue  from  the  rock  with  a  sort  of 
quivering  stillness.     I  trudged  up  the  Mont  Cava- 


244     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

lier  —  it  is  a  matter  of  five  minutes  —  and  having 
committed  this  cockneyism  enhanced  it  presently 
by  another.  I  ascended  the  stupid  Tour  Magne, 
the  mysterious  structure  I  mentioned  a  moment 
ago.  The  only  feature  of  this  dateless  tube,  ex- 
cept the  inevitable  collection  of  photographs  to 
which  you  are  introduced  by  the  doorkeeper,  is  the 
view  you  enjoy  from  its  summit.  This  view  is  of 
course  remarkably  fine,  but  I  am  ashamed  to  say 
I  have  not  the  smallest  recollection  of  it ;  for 
while  I  looked  into  the  brilliant  spaces  of  the  air 
I  seemed  still  to  see  only  what  I  saw  in  the  depths 
of  the  Roman  baths  —  the  image,  disastrously 
confused  and  vague,  of  a  vanished  world.  This 
world,  however,  has  left  at  Nimes  a  far  more  con- 
siderable memento  than  a  few  old  stones  covered 
with  water-moss.  The  Roman  arena  is  the  rival 
of  those  of  Verona  and  of  Aries ;  at  a  respectful 
distance  it  emulates  the  Colosseum.  It  is  a  small 
Colosseum,  if  I  may  be  allowed  the  expression, 
and  is  in  much  better  preservation  than  the  great 
circus  at  Rome.  This  is  especially  true  of  the 
external  walls,  with  their  arches,  pillars,  cornices. 
I  must  add  that  one  should  not  speak  of  preser- 
vation, in  regard  to  the  arena  at  Nimes,  without 
speaking  also  of  repair.  After  the  great  ruin 
ceased  to  be  despoiled  it  began  to  be  protected, 
and  most  of  its  wounds  have  been  dressed  with 


♦^ 


^ 


ROMAN   ARENA,    NIMES 


NIMES  245 

new  material.  These  matters  concern  the  archaeo- 
logist ;  and  I  felt  here,  as  I  felt  afterwards  at 
Aries,  that  one  of  the  profane,  in  the  presence 
of  such  a  monument,  can  only  admire  and  hold 
his  tongue.  The  great  impression,  on  the  whole, 
is  an  impression  of  wonder  that  so  much  should 
have  survived.  What  remains  at  Nimes,  after  all 
dilapidation  is  estimated,  is  astounding.  I  spent 
an  hour  in  the  Arenes  on  that  same  sweet  Sunday 
morning,  as  I  came  back  from  the  Roman  baths, 
and  saw  that  the  corridors,  the  vaults,  the  stair- 
cases, the  external  casing,  are  still  virtually  there. 
Many  of  these  parts  are  wanting  in  the  Colos- 
seum, whose  sublimity  of  size,  however,  can  afford 
to  dispense  with  detail.  The  seats  at  Ntmes,  like 
those  at  Verona,  have  been  largely  renewed ;  not 
that  this  mattered  much,  as  I  lounged  on  the  cool 
surface  of  one  of  them  and  admired  the  mighty 
concavity  of  the  place  and  the  elliptical  sky-line, 
broken  by  uneven  blocks  and  forming  the  rim  of 
the  monstrous  cup  —  a  cup  that  had  been  filled 
with  horrors.  And  yet  I  made  my  reflections  ;  I 
said  to  myself  that  though  a  Roman  arena  is  one 
of  the  most  impressive  of  the  works  Of  man,  it  has 
a  touch  of  that  same  stupidity  which  I  ventured 
to  discover  in  the  Pont  du  Gard.  It  is  brutal ;  it 
is  monotonous  ;  it  is  not  at  all  exquisite.  The 
Arenes  at  Nimes  were  arranged  for  a  bull-fight  — 


246     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

a  form  of  recreation  that,  as  I  was  informed,  is 
much  dans  les  habitudes  Nimoises,  and  very  com- 
mon throughout  Provence,  where  (still  according 
to  my  information)  it  is  the  usual  pastime  of  a 
Sunday  afternoon.  At  Aries  and  Nimes  it  has  a 
characteristic  setting,  but  in  the  villages  the  pa- 
trons of  the  game  make  a  circle  of  carts  and  bar- 
rels, on  which  the  spectators  perch  themselves. 
I  was  surprised  at  the  prevalence  in  miM  Provence 
of  the  Iberian  vice,  and  hardly  know  whether  it 
makes  the  custom  more  respectable  that  at  Nimes 
and  Aries  the  thing  is  shabbily  and  imperfectly 
done.  The  bulls  are  rarely  killed,  and  indeed 
often  are  bulls  only  in  the  Irish  sense  of  the  term 
—  being  domestic  and  motherly  cows.  Such  an 
entertainment  of  course  does  not  supply  to  the 
arena  that  element  of  the  exquisite  which  I  spoke 
of  as  wanting.  The  exquisite  at  Nimes  is  mainly 
represented  by  the  famous  Maison  Carree.  The 
first  impression  you  receive  from  this  delicate  little 
building,  as  you  stand  before  it,  is  that  you  have 
already  seen  it  many  times.  Photographs,  engrav- 
ings, models,  medals,  have  placed  it  definitely  in 
your  eye,  so  that  from  the  sentiment  with  which 
you  regard  it  curiosity  and  surprise  are  almost 
completely,  and  perhaps  deplorably,  absent.  Ad- 
miration remains,  however  —  admiration  of  a  fa- 
miliar and  even  slightly  patronizing  kind.    .The 


NIMES  247 

Maison  Carree  does  not  overwhelm  you  ;  you  can 
conceive  it.  It  is  not  one  of  the  great  sensations 
of  antique  art  ;  but  it  is  perfectly  felicitous,  and, 
in  spite  of  having  been  put  to  all  sorts  of  incon- 
gruous uses,  marvelously  preserved.  Its  slender 
columns,  its  delicate  proportions,  its  charming  com- 
pactness, seem  to  bring  one  nearer  to  the  century 
that  built  it  than  the  great  superpositions  of 
arenas  and  bridges,  and  give  it  the  interest  that 
vibrates  from  one  age  to  another  when  the  note 
of  taste  is  struck.  If  anything  were  needed  to 
make  this  little  toy-temple  a  happy  production 
the  service  would  be  rendered  by  the  second-rate 
boulevard  that  conducts  to  it,  adorned  with  inferior 
cafes  and  tobacco-shops.  Here,  in  a  respectable 
recess,  surrounded  by  vulgar  habitations  and  with 
the  theatre,  of  a  classic  pretension,  opposite, 
stands  the  small  "  square  house,"  so  called  be- 
cause it  is  much  longer  than  it  is  broad.  I  saw  it 
first  in  the  evening,  in  the  vague  moonlight,  which 
made  it  look  as  if  it  were  cast  in  bronze.  Stendhal 
says,  justly,  that  it  has  the  shape  of  a  playing- 
card,  and  he  expresses  his  admiration  for  it  by  the 
singular  wish  that  an  "  exact  copy  "  of  it  should 
be  erected  in  Paris.  He  even  goes  so  far  as  to 
say  that  in  the  year  1 880  this  tribute  will  have 
been  rendered  to  its  charms  ;  nothing  would  be 
more  simple,  to  his  mind,  than  to  "have"  in  that 


248     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

city  "  le  Pantheon  de  Rome,  quelques  temples  de 
Grece."  Stendhal  found  it  amusing  to  write  in 
the  character  of  a  commis-voyageur,  and  some- 
times it  occurs  to  his  reader  that  he  really  was 
one. 


XXIX 

TARASCON 

ON  my  way  from  Nimes  to  Aries  I  spent 
three  hours  at  Tarascon ;  chiefly  for  the 
love  of  Alphonse  Daudet,  who  has  written  nothing 
more  genial  than  "  Les  Aventures  Prodigieuses 
de  Tartarin,"  and  the  story  of  the  "siege"  of  the 
bright,  dead  little  town  (a  mythic  siege  by  the 
Prussians)  in  the  "Contes  du  Lundi."  In  the 
introduction  which,  for  the  new  edition  of  his 
works,  he  has  lately  supplied  to  "Tartarin,"  the 
author  of  this  extravagant  but  kindly  satire  gives 
some  account  of  the  displeasure  with  which  he 
has  been  visited  by  the  ticklish  Tarascon nais. 
Daudet  relates  that  in  his  attempt  to  shed  a  hu- 
morous light  upon  some  of  the  more  vivid  phases 
of  the  Provencal  character,  he  selected  Tarascon 
at  a  venture ;  not  because  the  temperament  of  its 
natives  is  more  vainglorious  than  that  of  their 
neighbors,  or  their  rebellion  against  the  "  despot- 
ism of  fact "  more  marked,  but  simply  because  he 
had  to  name  a  particular  Provencal  city.  Tarta- 
rin is  a  hunter  of  lions  and  charmer  of  women, 


250    A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

a  true  ''produit  du  midi,''  as  Daudet  says,  a  char- 
acter of  the  most  extravagant,  genial  comedy.  He 
is  a  minimized  Don  Quixote,  with  much  less  dig. 
nity,  but  with  equal  good  faith;  and  the  story  of 
his  exploits  is  a  little  masterpiece  of  the  free  fan- 
tastic. The  Tarasconnais,  however,  declined  to 
take  the  joke  and  opened  the  vials  of  their. wrath 
upon  the  mocking  child  of  Nimes,  who  would 
have  been  better  employed,  they  doubtless  thought, 
in  showing  up  the  infirmities  of  his  own  family. 
I  am  bound  to  add  that  when  I  passed  through 
Tarascon  they  did  not  appear  to  be  in  the  least 
out  of  humor.  Nothing  could  have  been  brighter, 
easier,  more  suggestive  of  amiable  indifference, 
than  the  picture  it  presented  to  my  mind.  It  lies 
quietly  beside  the  Rhone,  looking  across  at  Beau- 
caire,  which  seems  very  distant  and  independent, 
and  tacitly  consenting  to  let  the  castle  of  the  good 
King  Ren6  of  Anjou,  which  projects  very  boldly 
into  the  river,  pass  for  its  most  interesting  fea- 
ture. The  other  features  are,  primarily,  a  sort  of 
vivid  sleepiness  in  the  aspect  of  the  place,  as  if  the 
September  noon  (it  had  lingered  on  into  October) 
lasted  longer  there  than  elsewhere ;  certain  low 
arcades  which  make  the  streets  look  gray  and 
exhibit  empty  vistas  ;  and  a  very  curious  and  beau- 
tiful walk  beside  the  Rhone,  denominated  the 
Chauss^e  —  a  long  and  narrow  causeway,  densely 


TARASCON  251 

shaded  by  two  rows  of  magnificent  old  trees 
planted  in  its  embankment,  and  rendered  doubly 
effective  at  the  moment  I  passed  over  it  by  a 
little  train  of  collegians  who  had  been  taken  out 
for  mild  exercise  by  a  pair  of  young  priests. 
Lastly,  one  may  say  that  a  striking  element  of 
Tarascon,  as  of  any  town  that  lies  on  the  Rhone, 
is  simply  the  Rhone  itself ;  the  big  brown  flood, 
of  uncertain  temper,  which  has  never  taken  time 
to  forget  that  it  is  a  child  of  the  mountain  and  the 
glacier,  and  that  such  an  origin  carries  with  it 
great  privileges.  Later,  at  Avignon,  I  observed  it 
in  the  exercise  of  these  privileges,  chief  among 
which  was  that  of  frightening  the  good  people  of 
the  old  papal  city  half  out  of  their  wits. 

The  chateau  of  King  Rene  serves  to-day  as  the 
prison  of  a  district,  and  the  traveler  who  wishes  to 
look  into  it  must  obtain  his  permission  at  the  Mairie 
of  Tarascon.  If  he  have  had  a  certain  experience 
of  French  manners,  his  application  will  be  accom- 
panied with  the  forms  of  a  considerable  obsequios- 
ity,  and  in  this  case  his  request  will  be  granted  as 
civilly  as  it  has  been  made.  The  castle  has  more 
of  the  air  of  a  severely  feudal  fortress  than  I 
should  suppose  the  period  of  its  construction  (the 
first  half  of  the  fifteenth  century)  would  have 
warranted ;  being  tremendously  bare  and  perpen- 
dicular, and  constructed  for  comfort  only  in  the 


252     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

sense  that  it  was  arranged  for  defense.  It  is  a 
square  and  simple  mass,  composed  of  small  yellow 
stones,  and  perched  on  a  pedestal  of  rock  which 
easily  commands  the  river.  The  building  has  the 
usual  circular  towers  at  the  corners  and  a  heavy 
cornice  at  the  top,  and  immense  stretches  of  sun- 
scorched  wall  relieved  at  wide  intervals  by  small 
windows,  heavily  cross-barred.  It  has,  above  all, 
an  extreme  steepness  of  aspect ;  I  cannot  express 
it  otherwise.  The  walls  are  as  sheer  and  inhos- 
pitable as  precipices.  The  castle  has  kept  its 
large  moat,  which  is  now  a  hollow  filled  with 
wild  plants.  To  this  tall  fortress  the  good  Rene 
retired  in  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century, 
finding  it  apparently  the  most  substantial  thing 
left  him  in  a  dominion  which  had  included  Naples 
and  Sicily,  Lorraine  and  Anjou.  He  had  been  a 
much-tried  monarch  and  the  sport  of  a  various  for- 
tune, fighting  half  his  life  for  thrones  he  did  n't 
care  for,  and  exalted  only  to  be  quickly  cast  down. 
Provence  was  the  country  of  his  affection,  and  the 
memory  of  his  troubles  did  not  prevent  him  from 
holding  a  joyous  court  at  Tarascon  and  at  Aix. 
He  finished  the  castle  at  Tarascon,  which  had 
been  begun  earlier  in  the  century  —  finished  it,  I 
suppose,  for  consistency's  sake,  in  the  manner  in 
which  it  had  originally  been  designed  rather  than 
in  accordance  with  the  Artistic  tastes  that  formed 


TARASCON  253 

the  consolation  of  his  old  age.  He  was  a  painter, 
a  writer,  a  dramatist,  a  modern  dilettante,  ad- 
dicted to  private  theatricals.  There  is  something 
very  attractive  in  the  image  that  he  has  imprinted 
on  the  page  of  history.  He  was  both  clever  and 
kind,  and  many  reverses  and  much  suffering  had 
not  embittered  him  nor  quenched  his  faculty  of 
enjoyment.  He  was  fond  of  his  sweet  Provence, 
and  his  sweet  Provence  has  been  grateful ;  it  has 
woven  a  light  tissue  of  legend  around  the  memory 
of  the  good  King  Rene. 

I  strolled  over  his  dusky  habitation  —  it  must 
have  taken  all  his  good  humor  to  light  it  up  —  at 
the  heels  of  the  custodian,  who  showed  me  the 
usual  number  of  castle  properties  :  a  deep,  well- 
like court ;  a  collection  of  winding  staircases  and 
vaulted  chambers,  the  embrasures  of  whose  win- 
dows and  the  recesses  of  whose  doorways  reveal  a 
tremendous  thickness  of  wall.  These  things  con- 
stitute the  general  identity  of  old  castles ;  and 
when  one  has  wandered  through  a  good  many, 
with  due  discretion  of  step  and  protrusion  of  head, 
one  ceases  very  much  to  distinguish  and  remem- 
ber, and  contents  one's  self  with  consigning  them 
to  the  honorable  limbo  of  the  romantic.  I  must 
add  that  this  reflection  did  not  in  the  least  deter 
me  from  crossing  the  bridge  which  connects  Ta- 
rascon  with  Beaucaire,  in  order  to  examine  the  old 


254     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

fortress  whose  ruins  adorn  the  latter  city.  It 
stands  on  a  foundation  of  rock  much  higher  than 
that  of  Tarascon,  and  looks  over  with  a  melancholy 
expression  at  its  better-conditioned  brother.  Its 
position  is  magnificent,  and  its  outline  very  gal- 
lant. I  was  well  rewarded  for  my  pilgrimage  ;  for 
if  the  castle  of  Beaucaire  is  only  a  fragment,  the 
whole  place,  with  its  position  and  its  views,  is  an 
ineffaceable  picture.  It  was  the  stronghold  of  the 
Montmorencys,  and  its  last  tenant  was  that  rash 
Duke  Francois,  whom  Richelieu,  seizing  every 
occasion  to  trample  on  a  great  noble,  caused  to  be 
beheaded  at  Toulouse,  where  we  saw,  in  the  Cap- 
itol, the  butcher's  knife  with  which  the  cardinal 
pruned  the  crown  of  France  of  its  thorns.  The 
castle,  after  the  death  of  this  victim,  was  virtually 
demolished.  Its  site,  which  nature  to-day  has 
taken  again  to  herself,  has  an  extraordinary  charm. 
The  mass  of  rock  that  it  formerly  covered  rises 
high  above  the  town,  and  is  as  precipitous  as  the 
side  of  the  Rhone.  A  tall,  rusty  iron  gate  admits 
you  from  a  quiet  corner  of  Beaucaire  to  a  wild 
tangled  garden,  covering  the  side  of  the  hill  —  for 
the  whole  place  forms  the  public  promenade  of  the 
townsfolk  —  a  garden  without  flowers,  with  little 
steep,  rough  paths  that  wind  under  a  plantation 
of  small,  scrubby  stone-pines.  Above  this  is  the 
grassy  platform  of  the  castle,  inclosed  on  one  side 


TARASCON  ^55 

only  (toward  the  river)  by  a  large  fragment  of  wall 
and  a  very  massive  dungeon.  There  are  benches 
placed  in  the  lee  of  the  wall,  and  others  on  the 
edge  of  the  platform,  where  one  may  enjoy  a  view, 
beyond  the  river,  of  certain  peeled  and  scorched 
undulations.  A  sweet  desolation,  an  everlasting 
peace,  seemed  to  hang  in  the  air.  A  very  old 
man  (a  fragment,  like  the  castle  itself)  emerged 
from  some  crumbling  corner  to  do  me  the  honors 
—  a  very  gentle,  obsequious,  tottering,  toothless, 
grateful  old  man.  He  beguiled  me  into  an  ascent 
of  the  solitary  tower,  from  which  you  may  look 
down  on  the  big  sallow  river  and  glance  at  dimin- 
ished Tarascon  and  the  barefaced,  bald-headed 
hills  behind  it.  It  may  appear  that  I  insist  too 
much  upon  the  nudity  of  the  Provencal  horizon  — 
too  much,  considering  that  I  have  spoken  of  the 
prospect  from  the  heights  of  Beaucaire  as  lovely. 
But  it  is  an  exquisite  bareness ;  it  seems  to  exist 
for  the  purpose  of  allowing  one  to  follow  the  deli- 
cate lines  of  the  hills,  and  touch  with  the  eyes,  as 
it  were,  the  smallest  inflections  of  the  landscape. 
It  makes  the  whole  thing  wonderfully  bright  and 
pure. 

Beaucaire  used  to  be  the  scene  of  a  famous  fair, 
the  great  fair  of  the  south  of  France.  It  has  gone 
the  way  of  most  fairs,  even  in  France,  where  these 
delightful  exhibitions  hold  their  own  much  better 


256     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

than  might  be  supposed.  It  is  still  held  in  the 
month  of  July ;  but  the  bourgeoises  of  Tarascon 
send  to  the  Magasin  du  Louvre  for  their  smart 
dresses,  and  the  principal  glory  of  the  scene  is  its 
long  tradition.  Even  now,  however,  it  ought  to 
be  the  prettiest  of  all  fairs,  for  it  takes  place  in  a 
charming  wood  which  lies  just  beneath  the  castle, 
beside  the  Rhone.  The  booths,  the  barracks,  the 
platforms  of  the  mountebanks,  the  bright-colored 
crowd,  diffused  through  this  midsummer  shade 
and  spotted  here  and  there  with  the  rich  Proven- 
gal  sunshine,  must  be  of  the  most  pictorial  effect. 
It  is  highly  probable,  too,  that  it  offers  a  large  col- 
lection of  pretty  faces ;  for  even  in  the  few  hours 
that  I  spent  at  Tarascon  I  discovered  symptoms 
of  the  purity  of  feature  for  which  the  women  of 
the  pays  d' Aries  are  renowned.  The  Arlesian 
head  dress  was  visible  in  the  streets  ;  and  this  de- 
lightful coiffure  is  so  associated  with  a  charming 
facial  oval,  a  dark  ftiild  eye,  a  straight  Greek  nose, 
and  a  mouth  worthy  of  all  the  rest,  that  it  conveys 
a  presumption  of  beauty  which  gives  the  wearer 
time  either  to  escape  or  to  please  you.  I  have 
read  somewhere,  however,  that  Tarascon  is  sup- 
posed to  produce  handsome  men,  as  Aries  is 
known  to  deal  in  handsome  women.  It  may  be 
that  I  should  have  found  the  Tarasconnais  very 
fine  fellows  if  I  had  encountered  enough  speci- 


TARASCON  257 

mens  to  justify  an  induction.  But  there  are  very 
few  males  in  the  streets,  and  the  place  presented 
no  appearance  of  activity.  Here  and  there  the 
black  coif  of  an  old  woman  or  of  a  young  girl  was 
framed  by  a  low  doorway ;  but  for  the  rest,  as  I 
have  said,  Tarascon  was  mostly  involved  in  a 
siesta.  There  was  not  a  creature  in  the  little 
church  of  Saint  Martha,  which  I  made  a  point  of 
visiting  before  I  returned  to  the  station,  and  which, 
with  its  fine  romanesque  side-portal  and  its  pointed 
and  crocketed  gothic  spire,  is  as  curious  as  it  need 
be  in  view  of  its  tradition.  It  stands  in  a  quiet 
corner  where  the  grass  grows  between  the  small 
cobble-stones,  and  you  pass  beneath  a  steep  arch- 
way to  reach  it.  The  tradition  relates  that  Saint 
Martha  tamed  with  her  own  hands  and  attached 
to  her  girdle  a  dreadful  dragon,  who  was  known  as 
the  Tarasque,  and  is  reported  to  have  given  his 
name  to  the  city  on  whose  site  (amid  the  rocks 
which  form  the  base  of  the  chateau)  he  had  his 
cavern.  The  dragon,  perhaps,  is  the  symbol  of  a 
ravening  paganism,  dispelled  by  the  eloquence  of 
a  sweet  evangelist.  The  bones  of  the  interesting 
saint,  at  all  events,  were  found,  in  the  eleventh 
century,  in  a  cave  beneath  the  spot  on  which  her 
altar  now  stands.  I  know  not  what  had  become 
of  the  bones  of  the  dragon. 


XXX 

ARLES 

THERE  are  two  shabby  old  inns  at  Aries 
which  compete  closely  for  your  custom.  I 
mean  by  this  that  if  you  elect  to  go  to  the  Hotel 
du  Forum,  the  Hotel  du  Nord,  which  is  placed 
exactly  beside  it  (at  a  right  angle)  watches  your 
arrival  with  ill-concealed  disapproval ;  and  if  you 
take  the  chances  of  its  neighbor,  the  H6tel  du 
Forum  seems  to  glare  at  you  invidiously  from  all 
its  windows  and  doors.  I  forget  which  of  these 
establishments  I  selected ;  whichever  it  was,  I 
wished  very  much  that  it  had  been  the  other. 
The  two  stand  together  on  the  Place  des  Hommes, 
a  little  public  square  of  Aries,  which  somehow 
quite  misses  its  effect.  As  a  city,  indeed,  Aries 
quite  misses  its  effect  in  every  way ;  and  if  it  is  a 
charming  place,  as  I  think  it  is,  I  can  hardly  tell 
the  reason  why.  The  straight-nosed  Arlesiennes 
account  for  it  in  some  degree  ;  and  the  remainder 
may  be  charged  to  the  ruins  of  the  arena  and  the 
theatre.  Beyond  this,  I  remember  with  affection 
the  ill-proportioned  little  Place  des  Hommes  ;  not 


ARLES  259 

at  all  monumental,  and  given  over  to  puddles  and 
to  shabby  cafes.  I  recall  with  tenderness  the  tor- 
tuous and  featureless  streets,  which  looked  like 
the  streets  of  a  village  and  were  paved  with  vil- 
lainous little  sharp  stones,  making  all  exercise 
penitential.  Consecrated  by  association  is  even  a 
tiresome  walk  that  I  took  the  evening  I  arrived, 
with  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  view  of  the  Rhone. 
I  had  been  to  Aries  before,  years  ago,  and  it 
seemed  to  me  that  I  remembered  finding  on  the 
banks  of  the  stream  some  sort  of  picture.  I  think 
that  on  the  evening  of  which  I  speak  there  was  a 
watery  moon,  which  it  seemed  to  me  would  light 
up  the  past  as  well  as  the  present.  But  I  found 
no  picture,  and  I  scarcely  found  the  Rhone  at  all. 
I  lost  my  way,  and  there  was  not  a  creature  in  the 
streets  to  whom  I  could  appeal.  Nothing  could 
be  more  provincial  than  the  situation  of  Aries  at 
ten  o'clock  at  night.  At  last  I  arrived  at  a  kind 
of  embankment,  where  I  could  see  the  great  mud- 
colored  stream  slipping  along  in  the  soundless 
darkness.  It  had  come  on  to  rain,  I  know  not 
what  had  happened  to  the  moon,  and  the  whole 
place  was  anything  but  gay.  It  was  not  what  I 
had  looked  for ;  what  I  had  looked  for  was  in  the 
irrecQverable  past.  I  groped  my  way  back  to  the 
inn  over  the  infernal  caillotix,  feeling  like  a  dis- 
comfited  Dogberry.     I  remember  now  that  this 


26o     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

hotel  was  the  one  (whichever  that  may  be)  which 
has  the  fragment  of  a  Gallo-Roman  portico  in- 
serted into  one  of  its  angles.  I  had  chosen  it  for 
the  sake  of  this  exceptional  ornament.  It  was 
damp  and  dark,  and  the  floors  felt  gritty  to  the 
feet ;  it  was  an  establishment  at  which  the  dread- 
ful gras-doiible  might  have  appeared  at  the  table 
d'hote^  as  it  had  done  at  Narbonne.  Nevertheless, 
I  was  glad  to  get  back  to  it ;  and  nevertheless,  too 
—  and  this  is  the  moral  of  my  simple  anecdote  — 
my  pointless  little  walk  (I  don't  speak  of  the  pave- 
ment) suffuses  itself,  as  I  look  back  upon  it,  with 
a  romantic  tone.  And  in  relation  to  the  inn,  I 
suppose  I  had  better  mention  that  I  am  well  aware 
of  the  inconsistency  of  a  person  who  dislikes  the 
modern  caravansary  and  yet  grumbles  when  he 
finds  a  hotel  of  the  superannuated  sort.  One 
ought  to  choose,  it  would  seem,  and  make  the  best 
of  either  alternative.  The  two  old  taverns  at  Aries 
are  quite  unimproved ;  such  as  they  must  have 
been  in  the  infancy  of  the  modern  world,  when 
Stendhal  passed  that  way  and  the  lumbering  dili- 
gence deposited  him  in  the  Place  des  Hommes, 
such  in  every  detail  they  are  to-day.  Vieilles  au- 
bcrges  de  France^  one  ought  to  enjoy  their  gritty 
floors  and  greasy  window-panes.  Let  it  be  put  on 
record,  therefore,  that  I  have  been,  I  won't  say  less 
comfortable,  but  at  least  less  happy,  at  better  inns. 


SAINT    TROPHLME,    AKLKS  :     NAVE,    LOOKING    EAST 


ARLES  261 

To  be  really  historic,  I  should  have  mentioned 
that  before  going  to  look  for  the  Rhone  I  had 
spent  part  of  the  evening  on  the  opposite  side  of 
the  little  place,  and  that  I  indulged  in  this  recrea- 
tion for  two  definite  reasons.  One  of  these  was 
that  I  had  an  opportunity  of  gossiping  at  a  cafe 
with  a  conversable  young  Englishman  whom  I  had 
met  in  the  afternoon  at  Tarascon  and  more  re- 
motely, in  other  years,  in  London ;  the  other  was 
that  there  sat  enthroned  behind  the  counter  a 
splendid  mature  Arlesienne,  whom  my  .companion 
and  I  agreed  that  it  was  a  rare  privilege  to  con- 
template. There  is  no  rule  of  good  manners  or 
morals  which  makes  it  improper,  at  a  cafe,  to  fix 
one's  eyes  upon  the  dame  de  comptoir ;  the  lady 
is,  in  the  nature  of  things,  a  part  of  your  consoni- 
mation.  We  were  therefore  free  to  admire  with- 
out restriction  the  handsomest  person  I  had  ever 
seen  give  change  for  a  five-franc  piece.  She  was 
a  large  quiet  woman  who  would  never  see  forty 
again;  of  an  intensely  feminine  type,  yet  wonder- 
fully rich  and  robust,  and  full  of  a  certain  physical 
nobleness.  Though  she  was  not  really  old,  she 
was  antique,  and  she  was  very  grave,  even  a  little 
sad.  She  had  the  dignity  of  a  Roman  empress, 
and  she  handled  coppers  as  if  they  had  been 
stamped  with  the  head  of  Caesar.  I  have  seen 
washerwomen  in  the  Trastevere  who  were  perhaps 


262     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

as  handsome  as  she ;  but  even  the  headdress  of 
the  Roman  contadina  contributes  less  to  the  dig- 
nity of  the  person  born  to  wear  it  than  the  sweet 
and  stately  Arlesian  cap,  which  sits  at  once  aloft 
and  on  the  back  of  the  head ;  which  is  accom- 
panied with  a  wide  black  bow  covering  a  consider- 
able part  of  the  crown  ;  and  which,  finally,  accom- 
modates itself  indescribably  well  to  the  manner  in 
which  the  tresses  of  the  front  are  pushed  behind 
the  ears. 

This  admirable  dispenser  of  lumps  of  sugar  has 
distracted  me  a  little  ;  for  I  am  still  not  sufficiently 
historical.  Before  going  to  the  cafe  I  had  dined, 
and  before  dining  I  had  found  time  to  go  and  look 
at  the  arena.  Then  it  was  that  I  discovered  that 
Aries  has  no  general  physiognomy  and,  except  the 
delightful  little  church  of  Saint  Trophimus,  no 
architecture,  and  that  the  rugosities  of  its  dirty 
lanes  affect  the  feet  like  knife-blades.  It  was  not 
then,  on  the  other  hand,  that  I  saw  the  arena 
best.  The  second  day  of  my  stay  at  Aries  I 
devoted  to  a  pilgrimage  to  the  strange  old  hill  town 
of  Les  Baux,  the  mediaeval  Pompeii,  of  which  I 
shall  give  myself  the  pleasure  of  speaking.  The 
evening  of  that  day,  however  (my  friend  and  I 
returned  in  time  for  a  late  dinner),  I  wandered 
among  the  Roman  remains  of  the  place  by  the 
light    of   a   magnificent  moon,   and  gathered   an 


ARLES  263 

impression  which  has  lost  Httle  of  its  silvery  glow. 
The  moon  of  the  evening  before  had  been  aqueous 
and  erratic ;  but  if  on  the  present  occasion  it  was 
guilty  of  any  irregularity,  the  worst  it  did  was  only 
to  linger  beyond  its  time  in  the  heavens  in  order 
to  let  us  look  at  things  comfortably.  The  effect 
was  admirable ;  it  brought  back  the  impression  of 
the  way,  in  Rome  itself,  on  evenings  like  that,  the 
moonshine  rests  upon  broken  shafts  and  slabs  of 
antique  pavement.  As  we  sat  in  the  theatre  look- 
ing at  the  two  lone  columns  that  survive  —  part 
of  the  decoration  of  the  back  of  the  stage  —  and 
at  the  fragments  of  ruin  around  them,  we  might 
have  been  in  the  Roman  Forum.  The  arena  at 
Aries,  with  its  great  magnitude,  is  less  complete 
than  that  of  Nimes  ;  it  has  suffered  even  more 
the  assaults  of  time  and  the  children  of  time,  and  it 
has  been  less  repaired.  The  seats  are  almost 
wholly  wanting ;  but  the  external  walls,  minus  the 
topmost  tier  of  arches,  are  massively,  ruggedly 
complete ;  and  the  vaulted  corridors  seem  as  solid 
as  the  day  they  were  built.  The  whole  thing  is 
superbly  vast,  and  as  monumental,  for  place  of 
light  amusement  —  what  is  called  in  America  a 
"  variety  show  "  —  as  it  entered  only  into  the 
Roman  mind  to  make  such  establishments.  The 
poditim  is  much  higher  than  at  Nimes,  and  many 
of  the  great  white  slabs  that  faced  it  have  been 


264     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

recovered  and  put  into  their  places.  The  pro- 
consular box  has  been  more  or  less  reconstructed, 
and  the  great  converging  passages  of  approach  to 
it  are  still  majestically  distinct ;  so  that,  as  I  sat 
there  in  the  moon-charmed  stillness,  leaning  my 
elbows  on  the  battered  parapet  of  the  ring,  it  was 
not  impossible  to  listen  to  the  murmurs  and 
shudders,  the  thick  voice  of  the  circus,  that  died 
away  fifteen  hundred  years  ago. 

The  theatre  has  a  voice  as  well,  but  it  lingers 
on  the  ear  of  time  with  a  different  music.  The 
Roman  theatre  at  Aries  seemed  to  me  one  of  the 
most  charming  and  touching  ruins  I  had  ever 
beheld  ;  I  took  a  particular  fancy  to  it.  It  is  less 
than  a  skeleton  —  the  arena  may  be  called  a 
skeleton  ;  for  it  consists  only  of  half  a  dozen 
bones.  The  traces  of  the  row  of  columns  which 
formed  the  scene  —  the  permanent  back-scene  — 
remain;  two  marble  pillars  —  I  just  mentioned 
them  —  are  upright,  with  a  fragment  of  their 
entablature.  Before  them  is  the  vacant  space 
which  was  filled  by  the  stage,  with  the  line  of  the 
proscenium  distinct,  marked  by  a  deep  groove  im- 
pressed upon  slabs  of  stone,  which  looks  as  if  the 
bottom  of  a  high  screen  had  been  intended  to  fit 
into  it.  The  semicircle  formed  by  the  seats  — 
half  a  cup  —  rises  opposite  ;  some  of  the  rows  are 
distinctly  marked.     The  floor,  from  the  bottom  of 


..^l!w<*W^' 


ROMAN    THEATRE,    ARLES 


ARLES  265 

the  stage,  in  the  shape  of  an  arc  of  which  the 
chord  is  formed  by  the  line  of  the  orchestra,  is 
covered  by  slabs  of  colored  marble  —  red,  yellow, 
and  green  —  which,  though  terribly  battered  and 
cracked  to-day,  give  one  an  idea  of  the  elegance  of 
the  interior.  Everything  shows  that  it  was  on  a 
great  scale  :  the  large  sweep  of  its  inclosing  walls, 
the  massive  corridors  that  passed  behind  the 
auditorium,  and  of  which  we  can  still  perfectly 
take  the  measure.  The  way  in  which  every  seat 
commanded  the  stage  is  a  lesson  to  the  architects 
of  our  epochs,  as  also  the  immense  size  of  the 
place  is  a  proof  of  extraordinary  power  of  voice  on 
the  part  of  the  Roman  actors.  It  was  after  we 
had  spent  half  an  hour  in  the  moonshine  at  the 
arena  that  we  came  on  to  this  more  ghostly 
and  more  exquisite  ruin.  The  principal  entrance 
was  locked,  but  we  effected  an  easy  escalade^ 
scaled  a  low  parapet,  and  descended  into  the  place 
behind  the  scenes.  It  was  as  light  as  day,  and  the 
solitude  was  complete.  The  two  shm  columns,  as 
we  sat  on  the  broken  benches,  stood  there  like  a 
pair  of  silent  actors.  What  I  called  touching  just 
now  was  the  thought  that  here  the  human  voice, 
the  utterance  of  a  great  language,  had  been 
supreme.  The  air  was  full  of  intonations  and 
cadences  ;  not  of  the  echo  of  smashing  blows,  of 
riven  armor,  of  howling  victims,  and  roaring  beasts. 


266     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

The  spot  is,  in  short,  one  of  sweetest  legacies  of 
the  ancient  world  ;  and  there  seems  no  profanation 
in  the  fact  that  by  day  it  is  open  to  the  good 
people  of  Aries,  who  use  it  to  pass,  by  no  means 
in  great  numbers,  from  one  part  of  the  town  to  the 
other  ;  treading  the  old  marble  floor  and  brushing, 
if  need  be,  the  empty  benches.  This  familiarity 
does  not  kill  the  place  again  ;  it  makes  it,  on  the 
contrary,  live  a  little  —  makes  the  present  and  the 
past  touch  each  other. 


XXXI 


ARLES:  THE  MUSEUM 


THE  third  lion  of  Aries  has  nothing  to  do 
with  the  ancient  world,  but  only  with  the 
old  one.  The  church  of  Saint  Trophimus,  whose 
wonderful  romanesque  porch  is  the  principal  or- 
nament of  the  principal //<^r^  —  2i place  otherwise 
distinguished  by  the  presence  of  a  slim  and  taper- 
ing obelisk  in  the  middle,  as  well  as  by  that  of  the 
hotel  de  ville  and  the  museum  —  the  interesting 


268     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

church  of  Saint  Trophimus  swears  a  little,  as  the 
French  say,  with  the  peculiar  character  of  Aries. 
It  is  very  remarkable,  but  I  would  rather  it  were 
in  another  place.  Aries  is  delightfully  pagan,  and 
Saint  Trophimus,  with  its  apostolic  sculptures,  is 
rather  a  false  note.  These  sculptures  are  equally 
remarkable  for  their  primitive  vigor  and  for  the  per- 
fect preservation  in  which  they  have  come  down 
to  us.  The  deep  recess  of  a  round-arched  porch 
of  the  twelfth  century  is  covered  with  quaint 
figures  which  have  not  lost  a  nose  or  a  finger. 
An  angular,  Byzantine-looking  Christ  sits  in  a 
diamond-shaped  frame  at  the  summit  of  the  arch, 
surrounded  by  little  angels,  by  great  apostles,  by 
winged  beasts,  by  a  hundred  sacred  symbols  and 
grotesque  ornaments.  It  is  a  dense  embroidery 
of  sculpture,  black  with  time,  but  as  uninjured  as 
if  it  had  been  kept  under  glass.  One  good  mark 
for  the  French  Revolution  !  Of  the  interior  of 
the  church,  which  has  a  nave  of  the  twelfth  century 
and  a  choir  three  hundred  years  more  recent,  I 
chiefly  remember  the  odd  feature  that  the  roman- 
esque  aisles  are  so  narrow  that  you  literally  —  or 
almost  —  squeeze  through  them.  You  do  so  with 
some  eagerness,  for  your  natural  purpose  is  to 
pass  out  to  the  cloister.  This  cloister,  as  distin- 
guished and  as  perfect  as  the  porch,  has  a  great 
deal  of  charm.     Its  four  sides,  which  are  not  of 


-:-'"*  '\ 


t':T'JZ 


y  '■  ti0t^a'Jt'ii-  *--«»»  V> 


ARLES:   THE   MUSEUM         269 

the  same  period  (the  earliest  and  best  are  of  the 
twelfth  century),  have  an  elaborate  arcade,  sup- 
ported on  delicate  pairs  of  columns,  the  capitals  of 
which  show  an  extraordinary  variety  of  device  and 
ornament.  At  the  corners  of  the  quadrangle 
these  columns  take  the  form  of  curious  human 
figures.  The  whole  thing  is  a  gem  of  lightness 
and  preservation  and  is  often  cited  for  its  beauty  ; 
but  —  if  it  does  n't  sound  too  profane  —  I  prefer, 
especially  at  Aries,  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  theatre. 
The  antique  element  is  too  precious  to  be  mingled 
with  anything  less  rare.  This  truth  was  very  pre- 
sent to  my  mind  during  a  ramble  of  a  couple  of 
hours  that  I  took  just  before  leaving  the  place  ; 
and  the  glowing  beauty  of  the  morning  gave  the 
last  touch  to  the  impression.  I  spent  half  an  hour 
at  the  Museum  ;  then  I  took  another  look  at  the 
Roman  theatre  ;  after  which  I  walked  a  little  out 
of  the  town  to  the  Aliscamps,  the  old  Elysian 
Fields,  the  meagre  remnant  of  the  old  pagan  place 
of  sepulture,  which  was  afterwards  used  by  the 
Christians,  but  has  been  for  ages  deserted,  and 
now  consists  only  of  a  melancholy  avenue  of 
cypresses  lined  with  a  succession  of  ancient  sar- 
cophagi, empty,  mossy,  and  mutilated.  An  iron 
foundry,  or  some  horrible  establishment  which  is 
conditioned  upon  tall  chimneys  and  a  noise  of 
hammering   and   banging,    has   been   established 


2/0     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

near  at  hand ;  but  the  cypresses  shut  it  out  well 
enough,  and  this  small  patch  of  Elysium  is  a  very 
romantic  corner. 

The  door  of  the  Museum  stands  ajar,  and  a 
vigilant  custodian,  with  the  usual  batch  of  photo- 
graphs on  his  mind,  peeps  out  at  you  disapprov- 
ingly while  you  linger  opposite,  before  the  charming 
portal  of  Saint  Trophimus,  which  you  may  look  at 
for  nothing.  When  you  succumb  .to  the  silent  in- 
fluence of  his  eye  and  go  over  to  visit  his  collec- 
tion, you  find  yourself  in  a  desecrated  church,  in 
which  a  variety  of  ancient  objects  disinterred  in 
Arlesian  soil  have  been  arranged  without  any 
pomp.  The  best  of  these,  I  believe,  were  found 
in  the  ruins  of  the  theatre.  Some  of  the  most 
curious  of  them  are  early  Christian  sarcophagi, 
exactly  on  the  pagan  model,  but  covered  with  rude 
yet  vigorously  wrought  images  of  the  apostles  and 
with  illustrations  of  scriptural  history.  Beauty  of 
the  highest  kind,  either  of  conception  or  of  execu- 
tion, is  absent  from  most  of  the  Roman  fragments, 
which  belong  to  the  taste  of  a  late  period  and  a 
provincial  civilization.  But  a  gulf  divides  them 
from  the  bristling  little  imagery  of  the  Christian 
sarcophagi,  in  which,  at  the  same  time,  one  detects 
a  vague  emulation  of  the  rich  examples  by  which 
their  authors  were  surrounded.  There  is  a  certain 
element  of  style  in  all  the  pagan  things ;  there  is 


ARLES:   THE   MUSEUM         271 

not  a  hint  of  it  in  the  early  Christian  reUcs,  among 
which,  according  to  M.  Joanne,  of  the  Guide,  are 
to  be  found  more  fine  sarcophagi  than  in  any  col- 
lection but  that  of  Saint  John  Lateran.  In  two  or 
three  of  the  Roman  fragments  there  is  a  notice- 
able distinction  ;  principally  in  a  charming  bust  of 
a  boy,  quite  perfect,  with  those  salient  eyes  that 
one  sees  in  antique  portraits,  and  to  which  the  ab- 
sence of  vision  in  the  marble  mask  gives  a  look, 
often  very  touching,  as  of  a  baffled  effort  to  see  ; 
also  in  the  head  of  a  woman,  found  in  the  ruins  of 
the  theatre,  who,  alas  !  has  lost  her  nose,  and  whose 
noble,  simple  contour,  barring  this  deficiency,  re- 
calls the  great  manner  of  the  Venus  of  Milo. 
There  are  various  rich  architectural  fragments 
which  indicate  that  that  edifice  was  a  very  splen- 
did affair.  This  little  Museum  at  Aries,  in  short, 
is  the  most  Roman  thing  I  know  of  out  of  Rome. 


XXXII 


LES    BAUX 


I  FIND  that  I  declared  one  evening,  in  a  little 
journal  I  was  keeping  at  that  time,  that  I 
was  weary  of  writing  (I  was  probably  very  sleepy), 
but  that  it  was  essential  I  should  make  some  note 
of  my  visit  to  Les  Baux.  I  must  have  gone  to 
sleep  as  soon  as  I  had  recorded  this  necessity,  for 
I  search  my  small  diary  in  vain  for  any  account 
of  that  enchanting  spot.  I  have  nothing  but  my 
memory  to  consult  —  a   memory  which  is  fairly 


LES    BAUX  -     273 

good  in  regard  to  a  general  impression,  but  is  ter- 
ribly infirm  in  the  matter  of  details  and  items. 
We  knew  in  advance,  my  companion  and  I,  that 
Les  Baux  was  a  pearl  of  picturesqueness  ;  for  had 
we  not  read  as  much  in  the  handbook  of  Murray, 
who  has  the  testimony  of  an  English  nobleman  as 
to  its  attractions  ?  We  also  knew  that  it  lay  some 
miles  from  Aries,  on  the  crest  of  the  Alpilles,  the 
craggy  little  mountains  which,  as  I  stood  on  the 
breezy  platform  of  Beaucaire,  formed  to  my  eye 
a  charming,  if  somewhat  remote,  background  to 
Tarascon ;  this  assurance  having  been  given  us  by 
the  landlady  of  the  inn  at  Aries,  of  whom  we  hired 
a  rather  lumbering  conveyance.  The  weather  was 
not  promising,  but  it  proved  a  good  day  for  the 
mediaeval  Pompeii ;  a  gray,  melancholy,  moist,  but 
rainless,  or  almost  rainless  day,  with  nothing  in  the 
sky  to  flout,  as  the  poet  says,  the  dejected  and  pul- 
verized past.  The  drive  itself  was  charming  ;  for 
there  is  an  inexhaustible  sweetness  in  the  gray- 
green  landscape  of  Provence.  It  is  never  abso- 
lutely flat,  and  yet  is  never  really  ambitious,  and  is 
full  both  of  entertainment  and  repose.  It  is  in 
constant  undulation,  and  the  bareness  of  the  soil 
lends  itself  easily  to  outline  and  profile.  When  I 
say  the  bareness  I  mean  the  absence  of  woods  and 
hedges.  It  blooms  with  heath  and  scented  shrubs 
and   stunted  olive ;   and   the  white  rock  shining 


274     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

through  the  scattered  herbage  has  a  brightness 
which  answers  to  the  brightness  of  the  sky.  Of 
course  it  needs  the  sunshine,  for  all  southern  coun- 
tries look  a  little  false  under  the  ground-glass  of 
incipient  bad  weather.  This  was  the  case  on  the 
day  of  my  pilgrimage  to  Les  Baux.  Nevertheless, 
I  was  glad  to  keep  going  as  I  was  to  arrive  ;  and 
as  I  went  it  seemed  to  me  that  true  happiness 
would  consist  in  wandering  through  such  a  land  on 
foot,  on  September  afternoons,  when  one  might 
stretch  one's  self  on  the  warm  ground  in  some 
shady  hollow  and  listen  to  the  hum  of  bees  and  the 
whistle  of  melancholy  shepherds  ;  for  in  Provence 
the  shepherds  whistle  to  their  flocks.  I  saw  two  or 
three  of  them,  in  the  course  of  this  drive  to  Les 
Baux,  meandering  about,  looking  behind  and  calling 
upon  the  sheep  in  this  way  to  follow,  which  the 
sheep  always  did,  very  promptly,  with  ovine  una- 
nimity. Nothing  is  more  picturesque  than  to  see 
a  slow  shepherd  threading  his  way  down  one  of 
the  winding  paths  on  a  hillside,  with  his  flock  close 
behind  him,  necessarily  expanded,  yet  keeping 
just  at  his  heels,  bending  and  twisting  as  it  goes 
and  looking  rather  like  the  tail  of  a  dingy  comet. 
About  four  miles  from  Aries,  as  you  drive 
northward  towards  the  Alpilles,  of  which  Alphonse 
Daudet  has  spoken  so  often  and,  as  he  might  say, 
so  intimately,  stand  on  a  hill  that  overlooks  the 


LES   BAUX  275 

road  the  very  considerable  ruins  of  the  abbey  of 
Montmajour,  one  of  the  innumerable  remnants  of 
a  feudal  and  ecclesiastical  (as  well  as  an  architec- 
tural) past  that  one  encounters  in  the  south  of 
France ;  remnants  which,  it  must  be  confessed, 
tend  to  introduce  a  certain  confusion  and  satiety 
into  the  passive  mind  of  the  tourist.  Montmajour, 
however,  is  very  impressive  and  interesting ;  the 
only  trouble  with  it  is  that,  unless  you  have 
stopped  and  returned  to  Aries,  you  see  it  in  mem- 
ory over  the  head  of  Les  Baux,  which  is  a  much 
more  absorbing  picture.  A  part  of  the  mass  of 
buildings  (the  monastery)  dates  only  from  the  last 
century ;  and  the  stiff  architecture  of  that  period 
does  not  lend  itself  very  gracefully  to  desolation  : 
it  looks  too  much  as  if  it  had  been  burnt  down 
the  year  before.  The  monastery  was  demolished 
during  the  Revolution,  and  it  injures  a  little  the 
effect  of  the  very  much  more  ancient  fragments 
that  are  connected  with  it.  The  whole  place  is  on 
a  great  scale  ;  it  was  a  rich  and  splendid  abbey. 
The  church,  a  vast  basilica  of  the  eleventh  cen- 
tury and  of  the  noblest  proportions,  is  virtually 
intact ;  I  mean  as  regards  its  essentials,  for  the 
details  have  completely  vanished.  The  huge  solid 
shell  is  full  of  expression  ;  it  looks  as  if  it  had 
been  hollowed  out  by  the  sincerity  of  early  faith, 
and  it  opens  into  a  cloister  as  impressive  as  itself. 


2^6    A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

Wherever  one  goes,  in  France,  one  meets,  looking 
backward  a  little,  the  spectre  of  the  great  Revo- 
lution ;  and  one  meets  it  always  in  the  shape  of 
the  destruction  of  something  beautiful  and  pre- 
cious. To  make  us  forgive  it  at  all,  how  much  it 
must  also  have  destroyed  that  was  more  hateful 
than  itself!  Beneath  the  church  of  Montmajour 
is  a  most  extraordinary  crypt,  almost  as  big  as  the 
edifice  above  it,  and  making  a  complete  subter- 
ranean temple,  surrounded  with  a  circular  gallery, 
or  deambulatory,  which  expands  at  intervals  into 
five  square  chapels.  There  are  other  things,  of 
which  I  have  but  a  confused  memory  :  a  great 
fortified  keep  ;  a  queer  little  primitive  chapel  hol- 
lowed out  of  the  rock  beneath  these  later  struc- 
tures, and  recommended  to  the  visitor's  attention 
as  the  confessional  of  Saint  Trophimus,  who  shares 
with  so  many  worthies  the  glory  of  being  the  first 
apostle  of  the  Gauls.  Then  there  is  a  strange, 
small  church,  of  the  dimmest  antiquity,  standing 
at  a  distance  from  the  other  buildings.  I  remem- 
ber that  after  we  had  let  ourselves  down  a  good 
many  steepish  places  to  visit  crypts  and  confes- 
sionals, we  walked  across  a  field  to  this  archaic 
cruciform  edifice,  and  went  thence  to  a  point  fur- 
ther down  the  road,  where  our  carriage  was  await- 
ing us.  The  chapel  of  the  Holy  Cross,  as  it  is 
called,  is  classed  among  the  historic  monuments 


LES    BAUX  27^ 

of  France  ;  and  I  read  in  a  queer,  rambling,  ill- 
written  book  which  I  picked  up  at  Avignon,  and  in 
which  the  author,  M.  Louis  de  Laincel,  has  buried 
a  great  deal  of  curious  information  on  the  subject 
of  Provence  under  a  style  inspiring  little  confi- 
dence, that  the  "  delicieuse  chapelle  de  Sainte- 
Croix "  is  a  "veritable  bijou  artistique."  He 
speaks  of  "  a  piece  of  lace  in  stone,"  which  runs 
from  one  end  of  the  building  to  the  other,  but  of 
which  I  am  obliged  to  confess  that  I  have  no  re- 
collection. I  retain,  however,  a  sufficiently  clear 
impression  of  the  little  superannuated  temple,  with 
its  four  apses  and  its  perceptible  odor  of  antiquity 
—  the  odor  of  the  eleventh  century. 

The  ruins  of  Les  Baux  remain  quite  indistin- 
guishable even  when  you  are  directly  beneath 
them,  at  the  foot  of  the  charming  little  Alpilles, 
which  mass  themselves  with  a  kind  of  delicate 
ruggedness.  Rock  and  ruin  have  been  so  welded 
together  by  the  confusions  of  time  that  as  you 
approach  it  from  behind  —  that  is,  from  the  direc- 
tion of  Aries  —  the  place  presents  simply  a  gen- 
eral air  of  cragginess.  Nothing  can  be  prettier 
than  the  crags  of  Provence ;  they  are  beautifully 
modeled,  as  painters  say,  and  they  have  a  delight- 
ful silvery  color.  The  road  winds  round  the  foot 
of  the  hills  on  the  top  of  which  Les  Baux  is 
planted,    and    passes    into   another   valley,    from 


278     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

which  the  approach  to  the  town  is  many  degrees 
less  precipitous,  and  may  be  comfortably  made  in 
a  carriage.  Of  course  the  deeply  inquiring  trav- 
eler will  alight  as  promptly  as  possible ;  for  the 
pleasure  of  climbing  into  this  queerest  of  cities  on 
foot  is  not  the  least  part  of  the  entertainment  of 
going  there.  Then  you  appreciate  its  extraor- 
dinary position,  its  picturesqueness,  its  steepness, 
its  desolation  and  decay.  It  hangs  —  that  is, 
what  remains  of  it  —  to  the  slanting  summit  of 
the  mountain.  Nothing  would  be  more  natural 
than  for  the  whole  place  to  roll  down  into  the 
valley.  A  part  of  it  has  done  so  —  for  it  is  not 
unjust  to  suppose  that  in  the  process  of  decay  the 
crumbled  particles  have  sought  the  lower  level ; 
while  the  remainder  still  clings  to  its  magnificent 
perch. 

If  I  called  Les  Baux  a  city,  just  above,  it  was 
not  that  I  was  stretching  a  point  in  favor  of  the 
small  spot  which  to-day  contains  but  a  few  dozen 
inhabitants.  The  history  of  the  place  is  as  extra- 
ordinary as  its  situation.  It  was  not  only  a  city, 
but  a  state ;  not  only  a  state,  but  an  empire ;  and 
on  the  crest  of  its  little  mountain  called  itself 
sovereign  of  a  territory,  or  at  least  of  scattered 
towns  and  counties,  with  which  its  present  aspect 
is  grotesquely  out  of  relation.  The  lords  of  Les 
Baux,  in  a  word,  were  great  feudal  proprietors ; 


LES    BAUX  279 

and  there  was  a  time  during  which  the  island  of 
Sardinia,  to  say  nothing  of  places  nearer  home, 
such  as  Aries  and  Marseilles,  paid  them  homage. 
The  chronicle  of  this  old  Provencal  house  has 
been  written,  in  a  style  somewhat  unctuous  and 
flowery,  by  M.  Jules  Canonge.  I  purchased  the 
little  book  —  a  modest  pamphlet  —  at  the  estab- 
lishment of  the  good  sisters,  just  beside  the 
church,  in  one  of  the  highest  parts  of  Les  Baux. 
The  sisters  have  a  school  for  the  hardy  little 
Baussenques,  whom  I  heard  piping  their  lessons 
while  I  waited  in  the  cold  parloir  for  one  of  the 
ladies  to  come  and  speak  to  me.  Nothing  could 
have  been  more  perfect  than  the  manner  of  this 
excellent  woman  when  she  arrived ;  yet  her  small 
religious  house  seemed  a  very  out-of-the-way  cor- 
ner of  the  world.  It  was  spotlessly  neat,  and  the 
rooms  looked  as  if  they  had  lately  been  papered 
and  painted :  in  this  respect,  at  the  mediaeval 
Pompeii,  they  were  rather  a  discord.  They  were, 
at  any  rate,  the  newest,  freshest  thing  at  Les 
Baux.  I  remember  going  round  to  the  church 
after  I  had  left  the  good  sisters,  and  to  a  little 
quiet  terrace  which  stands  in  front  of  it,  orna- 
mented with  a  few  small  trees  and  bordered  with 
a  wall,  breast-high,  over  which  you  look  down 
steep  hillsides,  off  into  the  air,  and  all  about  the 
neighboring  country.     I  remember  saying  to  my- 


28o     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

self  that  this  Httle  terrace  was  one  of  those  feHci- 
toiis  nooks  which  the  tourist  of  taste  keeps  in  his 
mind  as  a  picture.  The  church  was  small  and 
brown  and  dark,  with  a  certain  rustic  richness. 
All  this,  however,  is  no  general  description  of 
Les  Baux. 

I  am  unable  to  give  any  coherent  account  of 
the  place,  for  the  simple  reason  that  it  is  a  mere 
confusion  of  ruin.  It  has  not  been  preserved  in 
lava  like  Pompeii,  and  its  streets  and  houses,  its 
ramparts  and  castle,  have  become  fragmentary, 
not  through  the  sudden  destruction,  but  through 
the  gradual  withdrawal,  of  a  population.  It  is  not 
an  extinguished,  but  a  deserted  city ;  more  de- 
serted far  than  even  Carcassonne  and  Aigues- 
Mortes,  where  I  found  so  much  entertainment  in 
the  grass-grown  element.  It  is  of  very  small 
extent,  and  even  in  the  days  of  its  greatness, 
when  its  lords  entitled  themselves  counts  of 
Cephalonia  and  Neophantis,  kings  of  Aries  and 
Vienne,  princes  of  Achaia,  and  emperors  of  Con- 
stantinople —  even  at  this  flourishing  period, 
when,  as  M.  Jules  Canonge  remarks,  ''they  were 
able  to  depress  the  balance  in  which  the  fate  of 
peoples  and  kings  is  weighed,"  the  plucky  little 
city  contained  at  the  most  no  more  than  thirty-six 
hundred  souls.  Yet  its  lords  (who,  however,  as 
I  have  said,  were  able  to  present  a  long  list  of 


LES   BAUX  281 

subject  towns,  most  of  them,  though  a  few  are 
renowned,  unknown  to  fame)  were  seneschals 
and  captains-general  of  Piedmont  and  Lombardy, 
grand  admirals  of  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  and  its 
ladies  were  sought  in  marriage  by  half  the  first 
princes  in  Europe.  A  considerable  part  of  the 
little  narrative  of  M.  Canonge  is  taken  up  with 
the  great  alliances  of  the  House  of  Baux,  whose 
fortunes,  matrimonial  and  other,  he  traces  from 
the  eleventh  century  down  to  the  sixteenth.  The 
empty  shells  of  a  considerable  number  of  old 
houses,  many  of  which  must  have  been  superb, 
the  lines  of  certain  steep  little  streets,  the  foun- 
dations of  a  castle,  and  ever  so  many  splendid 
views,  are  all  that  remain  to-day  of  these  great 
titles.  To  such  a  list  I  may  add  a  dozen  very 
polite  and  sympathetic  people  who  emerged  from 
the  interstices  of  the  desultory  little  town  to  gaze 
at  the  two  foreigners  who  had  driven  over  from 
Aries,  and  whose  horses  were  being  baited  at  the 
modest  inn.  The  resources  of  this  establishment 
we  did  not  venture  otherwise  to  test,  in  spite  of 
the  seductive  fact  that  the  sign  over  the  door  was 
in  the  Provencal  tongue.  This  little  group  in- 
cluded the  baker,  a  rather  melancholy  young  man, 
in  high  boots  and  a  cloak,  with  whom  and  his 
companions  we  had  a  good  deal  of  conversation. 
The  Baussenques  of  to-day  struck  me  as  a  very 


282     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

mild  and  agreeable  race,  with  a  good  deal  of  the 
natural  amenity  which,  on  occasions  like  this  one, 
the  traveler  who  is  waiting  for  his  horses  to  be 
put  in,  or  his  dinner  to  be  prepared,  observes  in 
the  charming  people  who  lend  themselves  to  con- 
versation in  the  hill  towns  of  Tuscany.  The  spot 
where  our  entertainers  at  Les  Baux  congregated 
was  naturally  the  most  inhabited  portion  of  the 
town ;  as  I  say,  there  were  at  least  a  dozen  human 
figures  within  sight.  Presently  we  wandered  away 
from  them,  scaled  the  higher  places,  seated  our- 
selves among  the  ruins  of  the  castle,  and  looked 
down  from  the  cliff  overhanging  that  portion  of 
the  road  which  I  have  mentioned  as  approaching 
Les  Baux  from  behind.  I  was  unable  to  trace 
the  configuration  of  the  castle  as  plainly  as  the 
writers  who  have  described  it  in  the  guide-books, 
and  I  am  ashamed  to  say  that  I  did  not  even 
perceive  the  three  great  figures  of  stone  (the 
three  Marys,  as  they  are  called ;  the  two  Marys 
of  Scripture,  with  Martha)  which  constitute  one 
of  the  curiosities  of  the  place,  and  of  which  M. 
Jules  Canonge  speaks  with  almost  hyperbolical 
admiration.  A  brisk  shower,  lasting  some  ten 
minutes,  led  us  to  take  refuge  in  a  cavity  of 
mysterious  origin,  where  the  melancholy  baker 
presently  discovered  us,  having  had  the  bonne 
pensh  of   coming  up   for  us   with   an   umbrella 


LES   BAUX  283 

which  certainly  belonged,  in  former  ages,  to  one 
of  the  Stephanettes  or  Berangeres  commemorated 
by  M.  Canonge.  His  oven,  I  am  afraid,  was  cold 
so  long  as  our  visit  lasted.  When  the  rain  was 
over  we  wandered  down  to  the  little  disencum- 
bered space  before  the  inn,  through  a  small 
labyrinth  of  obliterated  things.  They  took  the 
form  of  narrow,  precipitous  streets,  bordered  by 
empty  houses  with  gaping  windows  and  absent 
doors,  through  which  we  had  glimpses  of  sculp- 
tured chimney-pieces  and  fragments  of  stately 
arch  and  vault.  Some  of  the  houses  are  still 
inhabited ;  but  most  of  them  are  open  to  the  air 
and  weather.  Some  of  them  have  completely 
collapsed ;  others  present  to  the  street  a  front 
which  enables  one  to  judge  of  the  physiognomy 
of  Les  Baux  in  the  days  of  its  importance.  This 
importance  had  pretty  well  passed  away  in  the 
early  part  of  the  sixteenth  century,  when  the 
place  ceased  to  be  an  independent  principality. 
It  became  —  by  bequest  of  one  of  its  lords,  Ber- 
nardin  des  Baux,  a  great  captain  of  his  time  — 
part  of  the  appanage  of  the  kings  of  France,  by 
whom  it  was  placed  under  the  protection  of  Aries, 
which  had  formerly  occupied  with  regard  to  it 
a  different  position.  I  know  not  whether  the 
Arlesians  neglected  their  trust ;  but  the  extinc- 
tion of  the  sturdy  little  stronghold  is  too  complete 


284     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

not  to  have  begun  long  ago.  Its  memories  are 
buried  under  its  ponderous  stones.  As  we  drove 
away  from  it,  in  the  gloaming,  my  friend  and  I 
agreed  that  the  two  or  three  hours  we  had  spent 
there  were  among  the  happiest  impressions  of  a 
pair  of  tourists  very  curious  of  the  picturesque. 
We  almost  forgot  that  we  were  bound  to  regret 
that  the  shortened  day  left  us  no  time  to  drive 
five  miles  further,  above  a  pass  in  the  little  moun- 
tains—  it  had  beckoned  to  us  in  the  morning, 
when  we  came  in  sight  of  it,  almost  irresistibly  — 
to  see  the  Roman  arch  and  mausoleum  of  Saint 
Remy.  To  compass  this  larger  excursion  (includ- 
ing the  visit  to  Les  Baux)  you  must  start  from 
Aries  very  early  in  the  morning;  but  I  can  im- 
agine no  more  delightful  day. 


XXXIII 

AVIGNON 

I  HAD  been  twice  at  Avignon  before,  and,  yet 
I  was  not  satisfied.  I  probably  am  satisfied 
now;  nevertheless,  I  enjoyed  my  third  visit.  I 
shall  not  soon  forget  the  first,  on  which  a  particu- 
lar emotion  set  an  indelible  stamp.  I  was  creep- 
ing northward,  in  1870,  after  four  months  spent, 
for  the  first  time,  in  Italy.  It  was  the  middle  of 
January,  and  I  had  found  myself  unexpectedly 
forced  to  return  to  England  for  the  rest  of  the 
winter.  It  was  an  insufferable  disappointment ; 
I  was  wretched  and  broken-hearted.  Italy  ap- 
peared to  me  at  that  time  so  much  better  than 
anything  else  in  the'  world,  that  to  rise  from  table 


286     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

in  the  middle  of  the  feast  was  a  prospect  of  being 
hungry  for  the  rest  of  my  days.  I  had  heard  a 
great  deal  of  praise  of  the  south  of  France ;  but 
the  south  of  France  was  a  poor  consolation.  In 
this  state  of  mind  I  arrived  at  Avignon,  which 
under  a  bright,  hard  winter  sun  was  tingling  — 
fairly  spinning  —  with  the  mistral.  I  find  in  my 
journal  of  the  other  day  a  reference  to  the  acute- 
ness  of  my  reluctance  in  January,  1870.  France, 
after  Italy,  appeared  in  the  language  of  the  latter 
country,  poco  simpatica ;  and  I  thought  it  neces- 
sary, for  reasons  now  inconceivable,  to  read  the 
"Figaro,"  which  was  filled  with  descriptions  of  the 
horrible  Troppmann,  the  murderer  of  \hQfamillc 
Kink.  Troppmann,  Kink,  le  crime  de  Pantin  — 
the  very  names  that  figured  in  this  episode  seemed 
to  wave  me  back.  Had  I  abandoned  the  sonorous 
south  to  associate  with  vocables  so  base } 

It  was  very  cold  the  other  day  at  Avignon ;  for 
though  there  was  no  mistral,  it  was  raining  as  it 
rains  in  Provence,  and  the  dampness  had  a  terrible 
chill  in  it.  As  I  sat  by  my  fire  late  at  night  — 
for  in  genial  Avignon,  in  October,  I  had  to  have  a 
fire  —  it  came  back  to  me  that  eleven  years  before 
I  had  at  that  same  hour  sat  by  a  fire  in  that  same 
room,  and,  writing  to^a  friend  to  whom  I  was  not 
afraid  to  appear  extravagant,  had  made  a  vow  that 
at  some   happier   period   of   the   future  I  would 


.CY-^>/-i^: 'T.^  (■;'£:• 'r-' 


v^ 


'-^^^^r^^-:: 


~-a*if5^'|^ 


AVIGNON  287 

avenge  myself  on  the  ci-devant  city  of  the  Popes 
by  taking  it  in  a  contrary  sense.  I  suppose  that 
I  redeemed  my  vow  on  the  occasion  of  my  second 
visit  better  than  on  my  third  ;  for  then  I  was  on 
my  way  to  Italy,  and  that  vengeance,  of  course, 
was  complete.  The  only  drawback  was  that  I 
was  in  such  a  hurry  to  get  to  Ventimiglia  (where 
the  Italian  custom-house  was  to  be  the  sign  of  my 
triumph),  that  I  scarcely  took  time  to  make  it  clear 
to  myself  at  Avignon  that  this  was  better  than 
reading  the  "  Figaro."  I  hurried  on  almost  too 
fast  to  enjoy  the  consciousness  of  moving  south- 
ward. On  this  last  occasion  I  was  unfortunately 
destitute  of  that  happy  faith.  Avignon  was  my 
southernmost  limit ;  after  which  I  was  to  turn 
round  and  proceed  back  to  England.  But  in  the 
interval  I  had  been  a  great  deal  in  Italy,  and  that 
made  all  the  difference. 

I  had  plenty  of  time  to  think  of  this,  for  the 
rain  kept  me  practically  housed  for  the  first 
twenty-four  hours.  It  had  been  raining  in  these 
regions  for  a  month,  and  people  had  begun  to  look 
askance  at  the  Rhone,  though  as  yet  the  volume 
of  the  river  was  not  exorbitant.  The  only  excur- 
sion possible,  while  the  torrent  descended,  was  a 
kind  of  horizontal  dive,  accompanied  with  infinite 
splashing,  to  the  little  7misee  of  the  town,  which  is 
within  a  moderate  walk  of  the  hotel.     I  had  a 


288     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

memory  of  it  from  my  first  visit  ;  it  had  appeared 
to  me  more  pictorial  than  its  pictures.  I  found 
that  recollection  had  flattered  it  a  little,  and  that 
it  is  neither  better  nor  worse  than  most  provincial 
museums.  It  has  the  usual  musty  chill  in  the  air, 
the  usual  grass-grown  forecourt,  in  which  a  few 
lumpish  Roman  fragments  are  disposed,  the  usual 
red  tiles  on  the  floor,  and  the  usual  specimens  of 
the  more  livid  schools  on  the  walls.  I  rang  up 
the  gardien,  who  arrived  with  a  bunch  of  keys, 
wiping  his  mouth  ;  he  unlocked  doors  for  me, 
opened  shutters,  and  while  (to  my  distress,  as  if 
the  things  had  been  worth  lingering  over)  he 
shuffled  about  after  me,  he  announced  the  names 
of  the  pictures  before  which  I  stopped  in  a  voice 
that  reverberated  through  the  melancholy  halls, 
and  seemed  to  make  the  authorship  shameful 
when  it  was  obscure,  and  grotesque  when  it  pre- 
tended to  be  great.  Then  there  were  intervals  of 
silence,  while  I  stared  absent-mindedly,  at  hap- 
hazard, at  some  indistinguishable  canvas,  and  the 
only  sound  was  the  downpour  of  the  rain  on  the 
skylights.  The  museum  of  Avignon  derives  a 
certain  dignity  from  its  Roman  fragments.  The 
town  has  no  Roman  monuments  to  show ;  in  this 
respect,  beside  its  brilliant  neighbors,  Aries  and 
Nimes,  it  is  a  blank.  But  a  great  many  small  ob- 
jects have  been  found  in  its  soil  —  pottery,  glass. 


AVIGNON  289 

bronzes,  lamps,  vessels  and  ornaments  of  gold  and 
silver.  The  glass  is  especially  charming  —  small 
vessels  of  the  most  delicate  shape  and  substance, 
many  of  them  perfectly  preserved.  These  diminu- 
tive, intimate  things  bring  one  near  to  the  old  Ro- 
man life ;  they  seem  like  pearls  strung  upon  the 
slender  thread  that  swings  across  the  gulf  of  time. 
A  little  glass  cup  that  Roman  lips  have  touched 
says  more  to  us  than  the  great  vessel  of  an  arena. 
There  are  two  small  silver  casseroles,  with  chiseled 
handles,  in  the  museum  of  Avignon,  that  struck 
me  as  among  the  most  charming  survivals  of 
antiquity. 

I  did  wrong,  just  above,  to  speak  of  my  attack 
on  this  establishment  as  the  only  recreation  I  took 
that  first  wet  day ;  for  I  remember  a  terribly 
moist  visit  to  the  former  palace  of  the  Popes, 
which  could  have  taken  place  only  in  the  same 
tempestuous  hours.  It  is  true  that  I  scarcely 
know  why  I  should  have  gone  out  to  see  the  Papal 
palace  in  the  rain,  for  I  had  been  over  it  twice  be- 
fore, and  even  then  had  not  found  the  interest  of 
the  place  so  complete  as  it  ought  to  be ;  the  fact 
nevertheless  remains  that  this  last  occasion  is 
much  associated  with  an  umbrella,  which  was  not 
superfluous  even  in  some  of  the  chambers  and  cor- 
ridors of  the  gigantic  pile.  It  had  already  seemed 
to  me  the  dreariest  of  all  historical  buildings,  and 


290     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

my  final  visit  confirmed  the  impression.  The 
place  is  as  intricate  as  it  is  vast,  and  as  desolate 
as  it  is  dirty.  The  imagination  has,  for  some  rea- 
son or  other,  to  make  more  than  the  effort  usual 
in  such  cases  to  restore  and  repeople  it.  The  fact, 
indeed,  is  simply  that  the  palace  has  been  so  incal- 
culably abused  and  altered.  The  alterations  have 
been  so  numerous  that,  though  I  have  duly  conned 
the  enumerations,  supplied  in  guide-books,  of  the 
principal  perversions,  I  do  not  pretend  to  carry 
any  of  them  in  my  head.  The  huge  bare  mass, 
without  ornament,  without  grace,  despoiled  of  its 
battlements  and  defaced  with  sordid  modern  win- 
dows, covering  the  Rocher  des  Doms,  and  looking 
down  over  the  Rhone  and  the  broken  bridge  of 
Saint-Benazet  (which  stops,  in  such  a  sketchable 
manner  in  mid-stream),  and  across  at  the  lonely 
tower  of  Philippe  le  Bel  and  the  ruined  wall  of 
Villeneuve,  makes  at  a  distance,  in  spite  of  its 
poverty,  a  great  figure,  the  effect  of  which  is  car- 
ried out  by  the  tower  of  the  church  beside  it 
(crowned  though  the  latter  be,  in  a  top-heavy 
fashion,  with  an  immense  modern  image  of  the 
Virgin)  and  by  the  thick,  dark  foliage  of  the  gar- 
den laid  out  on  a  still  higher  portion  of  the  emi- 
nence. This  garden  recalls  faintly  and  a  trifle 
perversely  the  grounds  of  the  Pincian  at  Rome.  I 
know  not  whether  it  is  the  shadow  of  the  Papal 


AVIGNON  291 

name,  present  in  both  places,  combined  with  a 
vague  analogy  between  the  churches  —  which,  ap- 
proached in  each  case  by  a  flight  of  steps,  seemed 
to  defend  the  precinct  —  but  each  time  I  have 
seen  the  Promenade  des  Doms  it  has  carried  my 
thoughts  to  the  wider  and  loftier  terrace  from 
which  you  look  away  at  the  Tiber  and  Saint 
Peter's. 

As  you  stand  before  the  Papal  palace,  and  es- 
pecially as  you  enter  it,  you  are  struck  with  its 
being  a  very  dull  monument.  History  enough 
was  enacted  here  :  the  great  schism  lasted  from 
1305  to  1370,  during  which  seven  Popes,  all 
Frenchmen,  carried  on  the  court  of  Avignon  on 
principles  that  have  not  commended  themselves 
to  the  esteem  of  posterity.  But  history  has  been 
whitewashed  away,  and  the  scandals  of  that  period 
have  mingled  with  the  dust  of  dilapidations  and 
repairs.  The  building  has  for  many  years  been 
occupied  as  a  barrack  for  regiments  of  the  line, 
and  the  main  characteristics  of  a  barrack  —  an 
extreme  nudity  and  a  very  queer  smell  —  prevail 
throughout  its  endless  compartments.  Nothing 
could  have  been  more  cruelly  dismal  than  the  ap- 
pearance it  presented  at  the  time  of  this  third 
visit  of  mine.  A  regiment,  changing  quarters, 
had  departed  the  day  before,  and  another  was  ex- 
pected to  arrive  (from  Algeria)  on   the  morrow. 


292     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

The  place  had  been  left  in  the  befouled  and  belit- 
tered  condition  which  marks  the  passage  of  the 
military  after  they  have  broken  camp,  and  it  would 
offer  but  a  melancholy  welcome  to  the  regiment 
that  was  about  to  take  possession.  Enormous 
windows  had  been  left  carelessly  open  all  over  the 
building,  and  the  rain  and  wind  were  beating  into 
empty  rooms  and  passages ;  making  draughts 
which  purified,  perhaps,  but  which  scarcely 
cheered.  For  an  arrival  it  was  horrible.  A  hand- 
ful of  soldiers  had  remained  behind.  In  one  of  the 
big  vaulted  rooms  several  of  them  were  lying  on 
their  wretched  beds,  in  the  dim  light,  in  the  cold, 
in  the  damp,  with  the  bleak  bare  walls  before 
them,  and  their  overcoats,  spread  over  them,  pulled 
up  to  their  noses.  I  pitied  them  immensely, 
though  they  may  have  felt  less  wretched  than  they 
looked.  I  thought  not  of  the  old  profligacies  and 
crimes,  not  of  the  funnel-shaped  torture-chamber 
(which,  after  exciting  the  shudder  of  generations, 
has  been  ascertained  now,  I  believe,  to  have  been 
a  mediaeval  bakehouse),  not  of  the  tower  of  the 
glacikre  and  the  horrors  perpetrated  here  in  the 
Revolution,  but  of  the  military  burden  of  young 
France.  One  wonders  how  young  France  endures 
it,  and  one  is  forced  to  believe  that  the  French 
conscript  has,  in  addition  to  his  notorious  good- 
humor,  greater  toughness  than  is  commonly  sup- 


AVIGNON  293 

posed  by  those  who  consider  only  the  more  relaxing 
influences  of  French  civilization.  I  hope  he  finds 
occasional  compensation  for  such  moments  as  I 
saw  those  damp  young  peasants  passing  on  the 
mattresses  of  their  hideous  barrack,  without  any- 
thing around  to  remind  them  that  they  were  in 
the  most  civilized  of  countries.  The  only  traces 
of  former  splendor  now  visible  in  the  Papal  pile 
are  the  walls  and  vaults  of  two  small  chapels, 
painted  in  fresco,  so  battered  and  effaced  as  to  be 
scarcely  distinguishable,  by  Simone  Memmi.  It 
offers  of  course  a  peculiarly  good  field  for  restora- 
tion, and  I  believe  the  government  intend  to  take 
it  in  hand.  I  mention  this  fact  without  a  sigh,  for 
they  cannot  well  make  it  less  iateresting  than  it 
is  at  present. 


XXXIV 


VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON 


FORTUNATELY  it  did  not  rain  every  day 
(though  I  beheve  it  was  raining  everywhere 
else  in  the  department)  ;  otherwise  I  should  not 
have  been  able  to  go  to  Villeneuve  and  to  Vau- 
cluse.  The  afternoon,  indeed,  was  lovely  when  I 
walked  over  the  interminable  bridge  that  spans 
the  two  arms  of  the  Rhone,  divided  here  by  a  con- 
siderable island,  and  directed  my  course,  like  a 
solitary  horseman  —  on  foot,  to  the  lonely  tower 
which  forms  one  of  the  outworks  of  Villeneuve- 
l^s-Avignon.  The  picturesque,  half-deserted  little 
town  lies  a  couple  of  miles  further  up  the  river. 
The  immense  round  towers  of  its  old  citadel  and 
the  long  stretches  of  ruined  wall   covering  the 


VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON    295 

slope  on  which  it  lies  are  the  most  striking  fea- 
tures of  the  nearer  view,  as  you  look  from  Avig- 
non across  the  Rhone.  I  spent  a  couple  of  hours 
in  visiting  these  objects,  and  there  was  a  kind  of 
pictorial  sweetness  in  the  episode ;  but  I  have  not 
many  details  to  relate.  The  isolated  tower  I  just 
mentioned  has  much  in  common  with  the  detached 
donjon  of  Montmajour,  which  I  had  looked  at  in 
going  to  Les  Baux,  and  to  which  I  paid  my  re- 
spects in  speaking  of  that  excursion.  Also  the 
work  of  Philippe  le  Bel  (built  in  1307),  it  is  amaz- 
ingly big  and  stubborn,  and  formed  the  opposite 
limit  of  the  broken  bridge,  whose  first  arches  (on 
the  side  of  Avignon)  alone  remain  to  give  a  mea- 
sure of  the  occasional  volume  of  the  Rhone. 
Half  an  hour's  walk  brought  me  to  Villeneuve, 
which  lies  away  from  the  river,  looking  like  a  big 
village  half  depopulated,  and  occupied  for  the  most 
part  by  dogs  and  cats,  old  women  and  small  chil- 
dren ;  these  last,  in  general,  remarkably  pretty,  in 
the  manner  of  the  children  of  Provence.  You  pass 
through  the  place,  which  seems  in  a  singular 
degree  vague  and  unconscious,  and  come  to  the 
rounded  hill  on  which  the  ruined  abbey  lifts  its 
yellow  walls  —  the  Benedictine  abbey  of  Saint- 
Andre,  at  once  a  church,  a  monastery,  and  a  for- 
tress. A  large  part  of  the  crumbling  enceinte 
disposes  itself  over  the  hill ;  but  for  the  rest,  all 


296     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

that  has  preserved  any  traceable  cohesion  is  a 
considerable  portion  of  the  citadel.  The  defense 
of  the  place  appears  to  have  been  intrusted  largely 
to  the  huge  round  towers  that  flank  the  old  gate ; 
one  of  which,  the  more  complete,  the  ancient 
warden  (having  first  inducted  me  into  his  own 
dusky  little  apartment  and  presented  me  with  a 
great  bunch  of  lavender)  enabled  me  to  examine 
in  detail.  I  would  almost  have  dispensed  with  the 
privilege,  for  I  think  I  have  already  mentioned 
that  an  acquaintance  with  many  feudal  interiors 
has  wrought  a  sad  confusion  in  my  mind.  The 
image  of  the  outside  always  remains  distinct ;  I 
keep  it  apart  from  other  images  of  the  same  sort ; 
it  makes  a  picture  sufficiently  ineffaceable.  But 
the  guard -rooms,  winding  staircases,  loopholes, 
prisons,  repeat  themselves  and  intermingle ;  they 
have  a  wearisome  family  likeness.  There  are  always 
black  passages  and  corners,  and  walls  twenty  feet 
thick  ;  and  there  is  always  some  high  place  to 
climb  up  to  for  the  sake  of  a  "  magnificent  "  view. 
The  views,  too,  are  apt  to  run  together.  These 
dense  gate-towers  of  Philippe  le  Bel  struck  me, 
however,  as  peculiarly  wicked  and  grim.  Their 
capacity  is  of  the  largest,  and  they  contain  ever  so 
many  devilish  little  dungeons,  lighted  by  the  nar- 
rowest slit  in  the  prodigious  wall,  where  it  comes 
over  one  with  a  good  deal  of  vividness  and  still 


VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON    297 

more  horror  that  wretched  human  beings  once  lay 
there  rotting  in  the  dark.  The  dungeons  of  Ville- 
neuve  made  a  particular  impression  on  me  — 
greater  than  any  except  those  of  Loches,  which 
must  surely  be  the  most  gruesome  in  Europe.  I 
hasten  to  add  that  every  dark  hole  at  Villeneuve 
is  called  a  dungeon ;  and  I  believe  it  is  well 
established  that  in  this  manner,  in  almost  all  old 
castles  and  towers,  the  sensibilities  of  the  modern 
tourist  are  unscrupulously  played  upon.  There 
were  plenty  of  black  holes  in  the  Middle  Ages 
that  were  not  dungeons,  but  household  receptacles 
of  various  kinds  ;  and  many  a  tear  dropped  in  pity 
for  the  groaning  captive  has  really  been  addressed 
to  the  spirits  of  the  larder  and  the  fagot-nook. 
For  all  this  there  are  some  very  bad  corners  in 
the  towers  of  Villeneuve,  so  that  I  was  not  wide 
of  the  mark  when  I  began  to  think  again,  as  I 
had  often  thought  before,  of  the  stoutness  of  the 
human  composition  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  the 
tranquillity  of  nerve  of  people  to  whom  the  groan- 
ing captive  and  the  blackness  of  a  "  living  tomb  " 
were  familiar  ideas  which  did  not  at  all  interfere 
with  their  happiness  or  their  sanity.  Our  modern 
nerves,  our  irritable  sympathies,  our  easy  discom- 
forts and  fears,  make  one  think  (in  some  relations) 
less  respectfully  of  human  nature.  Unless,  in- 
deed, it  be  true,  as  I  have  heard  it  maintained,  that 


298     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

in  the  Middle  Ages  every  one  did  go  mad  —  every 
one  was  mad.  The  theory  that  this  was  a  period 
of  general  dementia  is  not  altogether  untenable. 

Within  the  old  walls  of  its  immense  abbey  the 
town  of  Villeneuve  has  built  itself  a  rough  fau- 
bourg ;  the  fragments  with  which  the  soil  was 
covered  having  been,  I  suppose,  a  quarry  of  ma- 
terial. There  are  no  streets ;  the  small,  shabby 
houses,  almost  hovels,  straggle  at  random  over 
the  uneven  ground.  The  only  important  feature 
is  a  convent  of  cloistered  nuns,  who  have  a  large 
garden  (always  within  the  walls)  behind  their 
house,  and  whose  doleful  establishment  you  look 
down  into,  or  down  at  simply,  from  the  battlements 
of  the  citadel.  One  or  two  of  the  nuns  were  pass- 
ing in  and  out  of  the  house  ;  they  wore  gray  robes 
with  a  bright  red  cape.  I  thought  their  situation 
most  provincial.  I  came  away  and  wandered  a 
little  over  the  base  of  the  hill,  outside  the  walls. 
Small  white  stones  cropped  through  the  grass, 
over  which  low  olive-trees  were  scattered.  The 
afternoon  had  a  yellow  brightness.  I  sat  down 
under  one  of  the  little  trees,  on  the  grass  —  the 
delicate  gray  branches  were  not  much  above  my 
head  —  and  rested  and  looked  at  Avignon  across 
the  Rhone.  It  was  very  soft,  very  still  and  plea- 
sant, though  I  am  not  sure  it  was  all  I  once  should 
have  expected  of  that  combination  of  elements  ; 


VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON    299 

an  old  city  wall  for  a  background,  a  canopy  of 
olives,  and  for  a  couch  the  soil  of  Provence. 

When  I  came  back  to  Avignon  the  twilight  was 
already  thick ;  but  I  walked  up  to  the  Rocher  des 
Doms.  Here  I  again  had  the  benefit  of  that 
amiable  moon  which  had  already  lighted  up  for 
me  so  many  romantic  scenes.  She  was  full,  and 
she  rose  over  the  Rhone  and  made  it  look  in  the 
distance  like  a  silver  serpent.  I  remember  say- 
ing to  myself  at  this  moment  that  it  would  be 
a  beautiful  evening  to  walk  round  the  walls  of 
Avignon  —  the  remarkable  walls  which  challenge 
comparison  with  those  of  Carcassonne  and  Aigues- 
Mortes,  and  which  it  was  my  duty,  as  an  observer 
of  the  picturesque,  to  examine  with  some  atten- 
tion. Presenting  themselves  to  that  silver  sheen, 
they  could  not  fail  to  be  impressive.  So,  at  least, 
I  said  to  myself  ;  but,  unfortunately,  I  did  not 
believe  what  I  said.  It  is  a  melancholy  fact  that 
the  walls  of  Avignon  had  never  impressed  me  at 
all,  and  I  had  never  taken  the  trouble  to  make  the 
circuit.  They  are  continuous  and  complete,  but 
for  some  mysterious  reason  they  fail  of  their 
effect.  This  is  partly  because  they  are  very  low, 
in  some  places  almost  absurdly  so  ;  being  buried 
in  new  accumulations  of  soil  and  by  the  filling  in 
of  the  moat  up  to  their  middle.  Then  they  have 
been  too  well  tended  ;  they  not  only  look  at  pre- 


300    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

sent  very  new,  but  look  as  if  they  had  never  been 
old.  The  fact  that  their  extent  is  very  much 
greater  makes  them  more  of  a  curiosity  than  those 
of  Carcassonne ;  but  this  is  exactly,  at  the  same 
time,  what  is  fatal  to  their  pictorial  unity.  With 
their  thirty-seven  towers  and  seven  gates  they 
lose  themselves  too  much  to  make  a  picture  that 
will  compare  with  the  admirable  little  vignette  of 
Carcassonne.  I  may  mention,  now  that  I  am 
speaking  of  the  general  mass  of  Avignon,  that 
nothing  is  more  curious  than  the  way  in  which, 
viewed  from  a  distance,  it  is  all  reduced  to  naught 
by  the  vast  bulk  of  the  palace  of  the  Popes. 
From  across  the  Rhone,  or  from  the  train  as  you 
leave  the  place,  this  great  gray  block  is  all 
Avignon ;  it  seems  to  occupy  the  whole  city, 
extensive,  with  its  shrunken  population,  as  the 
city  is. 


XXXV 

VAUCLUSE 

IT  was  the  morning  after  this,  I  think  (a  certain 
Saturday),  that  when  I  came  out  of  the  Hotel 
del' Europe,  which  lies  in  a  shallow  concavity  just 
within  the  city  gate  that  opens  on  the  Rhone  — 
came  out  to  look  at  the  sky  from  the  little  place 
before  the  inn  and  see  how  the  weather  promised 
for  the  obligatory  excursion  to  Vaucluse  —  I  found 
the  whole  town  in  a  terrible  taking.  I  say  the 
whole  town  advisedly ;  for  every  inhabitant  ap- 
peared to  have  taken  up  a  position  on  the  bank  of 


302     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

the  river,  or  on  the  uppermost  parts  of  the  pro- 
menade of  the  Doms,  where  a  view  of  its  course 
was  to  be  obtained.  It  had  risen  surprisingly  in 
the  night,  and  the  good  people  of  Avignon  had 
reason  to  know  what  a  rise  of  the  Rhone  might 
signify.  The  town,  in  its  lower  portions,  is  quite 
at  the  mercy  of  the  swollen  waters ;  and  it  was 
mentioned  to  me  that  in  1856  the  Hotel  de 
r  Europe,  in  its  convenient  hollow,  was  flooded  up 
to  within  a  few  feet  of  the  ceiling  of  the  dining- 
room,  where  the  long  board  which  had  served  for 
so  many  a  table  d'hote  floated  disreputably,  with 
its  legs  in  the  air.  On  the  present  occasion  the 
mountains  of  the  Ardeche,  where  it  had  been  rain- 
ing for  a  month,  had  sent  down  torrents  which, 
all  that  fine  Friday  night,  by  the  light  of  the 
innocent-looking  moon,  poured  themselves  into 
the  Rhone  and  its  tributary  the  Durance.  The 
river  was  enormous,  and  continued  to  rise ;  and 
the  sight  was  beautiful  and  horrible.  The  water 
in  many  places  was  already  at  the  base  of  the  city 
walls  ;  the  quay,  with  its  parapet  just  emerging, 
being  already  covered.  The  country,  seen  from 
the  Plateau  des  Doms,  resembled  a  vast  lake,  with 
protrusions  of  trees,  houses,  bridges,  gates.  The 
people  looked  at  it  in  silence,  as  I  had  seen  peo- 
ple before  —  on  the  occasion  of  a  rise  of  the  Arno, 
at  Pisa  —  appear  to  consider  the  prospect  of  an 


VAUCLUSE  303 

inundation.  "II  monte ;  il  monte  toujours"  — 
there  was  not  much  said  but  that.  It  was  a  gen- 
eral holiday,  and  there  was  an  air  of  wishing  to 
profit,  for  sociability's  sake,  by  any  interruption  of 
the  commonplace  (the  popular  mind  likes  "  a 
change,"  and  the  element  of  change  mitigates  the 
sense  of  disaster) ;  but  the  affair  was  not  other- 
wise a  holiday.  Suspense  and  anxiety  were  in 
the  air,  and  it  never  is  pleasant  to  be  reminded 
of  the  helplessness  of  man.  In  the  presence  of 
a  loosened  river,  with  its  ravaging,  unconquerable 
volume,  this  impression  is  as  strong  as  possible ; 
and  as  I  looked  at  the  deluge  which  threatened  to 
make  an  island  of  the  Papal  palace,  I  perceived 
that  the  scourge  of  water  is  greater  than  the 
scourge  of  fire.  A  blaze  may  be  quenched,  but 
where  could  the  flame  be  kindled  that  would  ar- 
rest the  quadrupled  Rhone  ?  For  the  population 
of  Avignon  a  good  deal  was  at  stake,  and  I  am 
almost  ashamed  to  confess  that  in  the  midst  of 
the  public  alarm  I  considered  the  situation  from 
the  point  of  view  of  the  little  projects  of  a  senti- 
mental tourist.  Would  the  prospective  inundation 
interfere  with  my  visit  to  Vaucluse,  or  make  it 
imprudent  to  linger  twenty-four  hours  longer  at 
Avignon  ?  I  must  add  that  the  tourist  was  not 
perhaps,  after  all,  so  sentimental.  I  have  spoken 
of  the  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of   Petrarch  as 


304    A   LITTLE  TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

obligatory,  and  that  was,  in  fact,  the  light  in 
which  it  presented  itself  to  me  ;  all  the  more  that 
I  had  been  twice  at  Avignon  without  undertaking 
it.  This  is  why  I  was  vexed  at  the  Rhone  —  if 
vexed  I  was  —  for  representing  as  impracticable 
an  excursion  which  I  cared  nothing  about.  How 
little  I  cared  was  manifest  from  my  inaction  on 
former  occasions.  I  had  a  prejudice  against 
Vaucluse,  against  Petrarch,  even  against  the  in- 
comparable Laura.  I  was  sure  that  the  place  was 
cockneyfied  and  threadbare,  and  I  had  never  been 
able  to  take  an  interest  in  the  poet  and  the  lady. 
I  was  sure  that  I  had  known  many  women  as 
charming  and  as  handsome  as  she,  about  whom 
much  less  noise  had  been  made  ;  and  I  was  con- 
vinced that  her  singer  was  factitious  and  literary, 
and  that  there  are  half  a  dozen  stanzas  in  Words- 
worth that  speak  more  to  the  soul  than  the  whole 
collection  of  his  fioriture.  This  was  the  crude 
state  of  mind  in  which  I  determined  to  go,  at  any 
risk,  to  Vaucluse.  Now  that  I  think  it  over,  I 
seem  to  remember  that  I  had  hoped,  after  all, 
that  the  submersion  of  the  roads  would  forbid  it. 
Since  morning  the  clouds  had  gathered  again,  and 
by  noon  they" were  so  heavy  that  there  was  every 
prospect  of  a  torrent.  It  appeared  absurd  to 
choose  such  a  time  as  this  to  visit  a  fountain  — 
a  fountain  which  would  be  indistinguishable  in  the 


VAUCLUSE  305 

general  cataract.  Nevertheless  I  took  a  vow,  that 
if  at  noon  the  rain  should  not  have  begun  to 
descend  upon  Avignon  I  would  repair  to  the  head- 
spring of  the  Sorgues.  When  the  critical  moment 
arrived,  the  clouds  were  hanging  over  Avignon  like 
distended  water-bags,  which  only  needed  a  prick 
to  empty  themselves.  The  prick  was  not  given, 
however ;  all  nature  was  too  much  occupied  in 
following  the  aberrations  of  the  Rhone  to  think  of 
playing  tricks  elsewhere.  Accordingly  I  started 
for  the  station  in  a  spirit  which,  for  a  tourist  who 
sometimes  had  prided  himself  on  his  unfailing 
supply  of  sentiment,  was  shockingly  perfunctory. 

"  For  tasks  in  hours  of  insight  willed 
May  be  in  hours  of  gloom  fulfilled." 

I  remembered  these  lines  of  Matthew  Arnold 
(written,  apparently,  in  an  hour  of  gloom),  and 
carried  out  the  idea,  as  I  went,  by  hoping  that 
with  the  return  of  insight  I  should  be  glad  to  have 
seen  Vaucluse.  Light  has  descended  upon  me 
since  then,  and  I  declare  that  the  excursion  is  in 
every  way  to  be  recommended.  The  place  makes 
a  great  impression,  quite  apart  from  Petrarch  and 
Laura. 

There  was  no  rain ;  there  was  only,  all  the  after- 
noon, a  mild,  moist  wind  and  a  sky  magnificently 
black,  which  made  a  repoussoir  for  the  paler  cliffs 


3o6     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

of  the  fountain.  The  road,  by  train,  crosses  a 
flat,  expressionless  country,  towards  the  range  of 
arid  hills  which  lie  to  the  east  of  Avignon,  and 
which  spring  (says  Murray)  from  the  mass  of  the 
Mont-Ventoux.  At  Isle-sur-Sorgues,  at  the  end 
of  about  an  hour,  the  foreground  becomes  much 
more  animated  and  the  distance  much  more  (or 
perhaps  I  should  say  much  less)  actual.  I  de- 
scended from  the  train,  and  ascended  to  the  top  of  . 
an  omnibus  which  was  to  convey  me  into  the  re- 
cesses of  the  hills.  It  had  not  been  among  my 
previsions  that  I  should  be  indebted  to  a  vehicle 
of  that  kind  for  an  opportunity  to  commune  with 
the  spirit  of  Petrarph  ;  and  I  had  to  borrow  what 
consolation  I  could  from  the  fact  that  at  least  I 
had  the  omnibus  to  myself.  I  was  the  only  pas- 
senger ;  every  one  else  was  at  Avignon  watching 
the  Rhone.  I  lost  no  time  in  perceiving  that  I 
could  not  have  come  to  Vaucluse  at  a  better 
moment.  The  Sorgues  was  almost  as  full  as  the 
Rhone,  and  of  a  color  much  more  romantic. 
Rushing  along  its  narrowed  channel  under  an 
avenue  of  fine  platanes  (it  is  confined  between  solid 
little  embankments  of  stone),  with  the  goodwives 
of  the  village,  on  the  brink,  washing  their  linen  in 
its  contemptuous  flood,  it  gave  promise  of  high 
entertainment  further  on. 

The  drive  to  Vaucluse  is  of  about  three  quarters 


VAUCLUSE  307 

of  an  hour ;  and  though  the  river,  as  I  say,  was 
promising,  the  big  pale  hills,  as  the  road  winds 
into  them,  did  not  look  as  if  their  slopes  of  stone 
and  shrub  were  a  nestling  place  for  superior  scen- 
ery. It  is  a  part  of  the  merit  of  Vaucluse,  indeed, 
that  it  is  as  much  as  possible  a  surprise.  The 
place  has  a  right  to  its  name,  for  the  valley 
appears  impenetrable  until  you  get  fairly  into  it. 
One  perverse  twist  follows  another,  until  the  om- 
nibus suddenly  deposits  you  in  front  of  the 
"  cabinet  "  of  Petrarch.  After  that  you  have  only 
to  walk  along  the  left  bank  of  the  river.  The 
cabinet  of  Petrarch  is  to-day  a  hideous  little  cafe^ 
bedizened,  like  a  signboard,  with  extracts  from  the 
ingenious  "  Rime."  The  poet  and  his  lady  are  of 
course  the  stock-in-trade  of  the  little  village,  which 
has  had  for  several  generations  the  privilege  of 
attracting  young  couples  engaged  in  their  wedding 
tour  and  other  votaries  of  the  tender  passion.  The 
place  has  long  been  familiar,  on  festal  Sundays, 
to  the  swains  of  Avignon  and  their  attendant 
nymphs.  The  little  fish  of  the  Sorgues  are  much 
esteemed,  and,  eaten  on  the  spot,  they  constitute, 
for  the  children  of  the  once  Papal  city,  the  classic 
suburban  dinner.  Vaucluse  has  been  turned  to 
account,  however,  not  only  by  sentiment,  but  by 
industry  ;  the  banks  of  the  stream  being  disfigured 
by  a  pair  of  hideous  mills  for  the  manufacture  of 


3o8     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN   FRANCE 

paper  and  of  wool.  In  an  enterprising  and  eco- 
nomical age  the  water-power  of  the  Sorgues  was 
too  obvious  a  motive  ;  and  I  must  say  that,  as  the 
torrent  rushed  past  them,  the  wheels  of  the  dirty 
little  factories  appeared  to  turn  merrily  enough. 
The  footpath  on  the  left  bank,  of  which  I  just 
spoke,  carries  one  fortunately  quite  out  of  sight  of 
them,  and  out  of  sound  as  well,  inasmuch  as  on 
the  day  of  my  visit  the  stream  itself,  which  was  in 
tremendous  force,  tended  more  and  more,  as  one 
approached  the  fountain,  to  fill  the  valley  with  its 
own  echoes.  Its  color  was  magnificent,  and  the 
whole  spectacle  more  like  a  corner  of  Switzerland 
than  a  nook  in  Provence.  The  protrusions  of  the 
mountain  shut  it  in,  and  you  penetrate  to  the 
bottom  of  the  recess  which  they  form.  The 
Sorgues  rushes  and  rushes ;  it  is  almost  like 
Niagara  after  the  jump  of  the  cataract.  There  are 
dreadful  little  booths  beside  the  path,  for  the  sale 
of  photographs  and  immortelles — I  don't  know 
what  one  is  to  do  with  the  immortelles — where 
you  are  offered  a  brush  dipped  in  tar  to  write 
your  name  withal  on  the  rocks.  Thousands  of 
vulgar  persons,  of  both  sexes,  and  exclusively,  it 
appeared,  of  the  French  nationality,  had  availed 
themselves  of  this  implement ;  for  every  square 
inch  of  accessible  stone  was  scored  over  with  some 
human  appellation.     It  is  not  only  we  in  America, 


VAUCLUSE  309 

therefore,  who  besmirch  our  scenery ;  the  practice 
exists,  in  a  more  organized  form  (like  everything 
else  in  France),  in  the  country  of  good  taste.  You 
leave  the  little  booths  and  stalls  behind ;  but  the 
bescribbled  crag,  bristling  with  human  vanity, 
keeps  you  company  even  when  you  stand  face  to 
face  with  the  fountain.  This  happens  when  you 
find  yourself  at  the  foot  of  the  enormous  straight 
cliff  out  of  which  the  river  gushes.  It  rears  itself 
to  an  extraordinary  height  —  a  huge  forehead  of 
bare  stone  —  looking  as  if  it  were  the  half  of  a 
tremendous  mound  split  open  by  volcanic  action. 
The  little  valley,  seeing  it  there,  at  a  bend,  stops 
suddenly  and  receives  in  its  arms  the  magical 
spring.  I  call  it  magical  on  account  of  the  mys- 
terious manner  in  which  it  comes  into  the  world, 
with  the  huge  shoulder  of  the  mountain  rising 
over  it  as  if  to  protect  the  secret.  From  under 
the  mountain  it  silently  rises,  without  visible  move- 
ment, filling  a  small  natural  basin  with  the  stillest 
blue  water.  The  contrast  between  the  stillness  of 
this  basin  and  the  agitation  of  the  water  directly 
after  it  has  overflowed,  constitutes  half  the  charm 
of  Vaucluse.  The  violence  of  the  stream  when 
once  it  has  been  set  loose  on  the  rocks  is  as  fasci- 
nating and  indescribable  as  that  of  other  cataracts  ; 
and  the  rocks  in  the  bed  of  the  Sorgues  have  been 
arranged  by  a  master  hand.     The  setting  of  the 


310    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

phenomenon  struck  me  as  so  simple  and  so  fine  — 
the  vast  sad  cliff,  covered  with  the  afternoon  light, 
still  and  solid  forever,  while  the  liquid  element 
rages  and  roars  at  its  base  —  that  I  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  understanding  the  celebrity  of  Vaucluse. 
I  understood  it,  but  I  will  not  say  that  I  under- 
stood Petrarch.  He  must  have  been  very  self- 
supporting,  and  Madonna  Laura  must  indeed  have 
been  much  to  him. 

The  aridity  of  the  hills  that  shut  in  the  valley 
is  complete,  and  the  whole  impression  is  best  con- 
veyed by  that  very  expressive  French  epithet 
morne.  There  are  the  very  fragmentary  ruins  of 
a  castle  (of  one  of  the  bishops  of  Cavaillon)  on  a 
high  spur  of  the  mountain,  above  the  river ;  and 
there  is  another  remnant  of  a  feudal  habitation  on 
one  of  the  more  accessible  ledges.  Having  half 
an  hour  to  spare  before  my  omnibus  was  to  leave 
(I  must  beg  the  reader's  pardon  for  this  atro- 
ciously false  note  ;  call  the  vehicle  a  diligc7ice^  and 
for  some  undiscoverable  reason  the  offense  is 
minimized),  I  clambered  up  to  this  latter  spot  and 
sat  among  the  rocks  in  the  company  of  a  few 
stunted  olives.  The  Sorgues,  beneath  me,  reach- 
ing the  plain,  flung  itself  crookedly  across  the 
meadows  like  an  unrolled  blue  ribbon.  I  tried  to 
think  of  the  amant  dc  LatirCy  for  literature's  sake ; 
but  I  had  no  great  success,  and  the  most  I  could 


VAUCLUSE  311 

do  was  to  say  to  myself  that  I  must  try  again. 
Several  months  have  elapsed  since  then,  and  I  am 
ashamed  to  confess  that  the  trial  has  not  yet  come 
off.  The  only  very  definite  conviction  I  arrived 
at  was  that  Vaucluse  is  indeed  cockneyfied,  but 
that  I  should  have  been  a  fool,  all  the  same,  not  to 
come. 


XXXVI 

ORANGE 

I  MOUNTED  into  my  diligence  at  the  door 
of  the  Hotel  de  Petrarque  et  de  Laure,  and 
we  made  our  way  back  to  Isle-sur-Sorgues  in  the 
fading  light.  This  village,  where  at  six  o'clock 
every  one  appeared  to  have  gone  to  bed,  was  fairly 
darkened  by  its  high,  dense  plane-trees,  under 
which  the  rushing  river,  on  a  level  with  its  para- 
pets, looked  unnaturally,  almost  wickedly,  blue. 
It  was  a  glimpse  which  has  left  a  picture  in  my 
mind :  the  little  closed  houses,  the  place  empty 
and  soundless  in  the  autumn  dusk  but  for  the 
noise  of  waters,  and  in  the  middle,  amid  the  black- 
ness of  the  shade,  the  gleam  of  the  swift,  strange 
tide.  At  the  station  every  one  was  talking  of  the 
inundation  being  in  many  places  an  accomplished 
fact,  and,  in  particular,  of  the  condition  of  the 
Durance  at  some  point  that  I  have  forgotten.  At 
Avignon,  an  hour  later,  I  found  the  water  in  some 
of  the  streets.  The  sky  cleared  in  the  evening, 
the  moon  lighted  up  the  submerged  suburbs,  and 
the  population  again  collected  in  the  high  places 


ORANGE  313 

to  enjoy  the  spectacle.  It  exhibited  a  certain 
sameness,  however,  and  by  nine  o'clock  there  was 
considerable  animation  in  the  Place  Crillon,  where 
there  is  nothing  to  be  seen  but  the  front  of  the 
theatre  and  of  several  cafes  —  in  addition,  indeed, 
to  a  statue  of  this  celebrated  brave,  whose  valor 
redeemed  some  of  the  numerous  military  disasters 
of  the  reign  of  Louis  XV.  The  next  morning  the 
lower  quarters  of  the  town  were  in  a  pitiful  state : 
the  situation  seemed  to  me  odious.  To  express 
my  disapproval  of  it  I  lost  no  time  in  taking  the 
train  to  Orange,  which,  with  its  other  attractions, 
had  the  merit  of  not  being  seated  on  the  Rhone. 
It  was  destiny  to  move  northward ;  but  even  if  I 
had  been  at  liberty  to  follow  a  less  unnatural 
course  I  should  not  then  have  undertaken  it,  inas- 
much as  the  railway  between  Avignon  and  Mar- 
seilles was  credibly  reported  to  be  (in  places)  under 
water.  This  was  the  case  with  almost  everything 
but  the  line  itself  on  the  way  to  Orange.  The 
day  proved  splendid,  and  its  brilliancy  only  lighted 
up  the  desolation.  Farmhouses  and  cottages  were 
up  to  their  middle  in  the  yellow  liquidity;  hay- 
stacks looked  like  dull  little  islands  ;  windows  and 
doors  gaped  open,  without  faces  ;  and  interruption 
and  flight  were  represented  in  the  scene.  It  was 
brought  home  to  me  that  the  populations  riirales 
have  many  different  ways  of  suffering,  and  my 


314     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

heart  glowed  with  a  grateful  sense  of  cockneyism. 
It  was  under  the  influence  of  this  emotion  that  I 
alighted  at  Orange  to  visit  a  collection  of  emi- 
nently civil  monuments. 

The  collection  consists  of  but  two  objects,  but 
these  objects  are  so  fine  that  I  will  let  the  word 
pass.  One  of  them  is  a  triumphal  arch,  supposedly 
of  the  period  of  Marcus  Aurelius ;  the  other  is 
a  fragment,  magnificent  in  its  ruin,  of  a  Roman 
theatre.  But  for  these  fine  Roman  remains  and 
for  its  name.  Orange  is  a  perfectly  featureless 
little  town,  without  the  Rhone  —  which,  as  I  have 
mentioned,  is  several  miles  distant  —  to  help  it  to 
a  physiognomy.  It  seems  one  of  the  oddest  things 
that  this  obscure  French  borough  —  obscure,  I 
mean,  in  our  modern  era,  for  the  Gallo-Roman 
Arausio  must  have  been,  judging  it  by  its  arches 
and  theatre,  a  place  of  some  importance  —  should 
have  given  its  name  to  the  heirs-apparent  of  the 
throne  of  Holland,  and  been  borne  by  a  king  of 
England  who  had  sovereign  rights  over  it.  During 
the  Middle  Ages  it  formed  part  of  an  independent 
principality;  but  in  1531  it  fell,  by  the  marriage 
of  one  of  its  j^incesses,  who  had  inherited  it,  into 
the  family  of  Nassau.  I  read  in  my  indispensable 
Murray  that  it  was  made  over  to  France  by  the 
treaty  of  Utrecht.  The  arch  of  triumph,  which 
stands  a  little  way  out  of  the  town,  is  rather  a 


o 
o 

,•'■■' ^      5 


ORANGE  315 

pretty  than  an  imposing  vestige  of  the  Romans. 
If  it  had  greater  purity  of  style  one  might  say  of 
it  that  it  belonged  to  the  same  family  of  monu- 
ments as  the  Maison  Carree  at  Nimes.  It  has 
three  passages  —  the  middle  much  higher  than 
the  others  —  and  a  very  elevated  attic.  The  vaults 
of  the  passages  are  richly  sculptured,  and  the 
whole  structure  is  covered  with  friezes  and  mil- 
itary trophies.  This  sculpture  is  rather  mixed ; 
much  of  it  is  broken  and  defaced,  and  the  rest 
seemed  to  me  ugly,  though  its  workmanship  is 
praised.  The  arch  is  at  once  well  preserved  and 
much  injured.  Its  general  mass  is  there,  and  as 
Roman  monuments  go  it  is  remarkably  perfect ; 
but  it  has  suffered,  in  patches,  from  the  extremity 
of  restoration.  It  is  not,  on  the  whole,  of  absorb- 
ing interest.  It  has  a  charm,  nevertheless,  which 
comes  partly  from  its  soft,  bright  yellow  color, 
partly  from  a  certain  elegance  of  shape,  of  expres- 
sion ;  and  on  that  well-washed  Sunday  morning, 
with  its  brilliant  tone,  surrounded  by  its  circle  of 
thin  poplars,  with  the  green  country  lying  beyond 
it  and  a  low  blue  horizon  showing  through  its 
empty  portals,  it  made,  very  sufficiently,  a  picture 
that  hangs  itself  to  one  of  the  lateral  hooks  of  the 
memory.  I  can  take  down  the  modest  composition 
and  place  it  before  me  as  I  write.  I  see  the  shal- 
low, shining  puddles  in  the  hard,  fair  French  road ; 


3i6     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

the  pale  blue  sky,  diluted  by  days  of  rain  ;  the  dis- 
garnished  autumnal  fields  ;  the  mild  sparkle  of  the 
low  horizon ;  the  solitary  figure  in  sabots,  with  a 
bundle  pnder  its  arm,  advancing  along  the  chatissee; 
and  in  the  middle  I  see  the  little  ochre-colored  trio 
of  apertures,  which,  in  spite  of  its  antiquity,  looks 
bright  and  gay,  as  everything  must  look  in  France 
of  a  fresh  Sunday  morning. 

It  is  true  that  this  was  not  exactly  the  appear- 
ance of  the  Roman  theatre,  which  lies  on  the 
other  side  of  the  town ;  a  fact  that  did  not  pre- 
vent me  from  making  my  way  to  it  in  less  than 
five  minutes,  through  a  succession  of  little  streets 
concerning  which  I  have  no  observations  to  record. 
None  of  the  Roman  remains  in  the  south  of  France 
are  more  impressive  than  this  stupendous  frag- 
ment. An  enormous  mound  rises  above  the  place, 
which  was  formerly  occupied  —  I  quote  from  Mur- 
ray—  first  by  a  citadel  of  the  Romans,  then  by 
a  castle  of  the  princes  of  Nassau,  razed  by  Louis 
XIV.  Facing  this  hill  a  mighty  wall  erects  itself, 
thirty-six  metres  high,  and  composed  of  massive 
blocks  of  dark  brown  stone  simply  laid  one  on  the 
other ;  the  whole  naked,  rugged  surface  of  which 
suggests  a  natural  cliff  (say  of  the  Vaucluse  order) 
rather  than  an  effort  of  human  or  even  of  Roman 
labor.  It  is  the  biggest  thing  at  Orange  —  it  is 
bigger  than  all  Orange  put  together — and  its  per- 


ORANGE  317 

manent  massiveness  makes  light  of  the  shrunken 
city.  The  face  it  presents  to  the  town  —  the  top 
of  it  garnished  with  two  rows  of  brackets  per- 
forated with  holes  to  receive  the  staves  of  the 
velarmm — bears  the  traces  of  more  than  one  tier 
of  ornamental  arches ;  though  how  these  flat 
arches  were  applied,  or  incrusted,  upon  the  wall, 
I  do  not  profess  to  explain.  You  pass  through  a 
diminutive  postern  —  which  seems  in  proportion 
about  as  high  as  the  entrance  of  a  rabbit-hutch  — 
into  the  lodge  of  the  custodian,  who  introduces 
you  to  the  interior  of  the  theatre.  Here  the  mass 
of  the  hill  affronts  you,  which  the  ingenious  Ro- 
mans treated  simply  as  the  material  of  their  au- 
ditorium. They  inserted  their  stone  seats,  in  a 
semicircle,  in  the  slope  of  the  hill,  and  planted 
their  colossal  wall  opposite  to  it.  This  wall,  from 
the  inside,  is,  if  possible,  even  more  imposing.  It 
formed  the  back  of  the  stage,  the  permanent  scene, 
and  its  enormous  face  was  coated  with  marble.  It 
contains  three  doors,  the  middle  one  being  the 
highest,  and  having  above  it,  far  aloft,  a  deep  niche 
apparently  intended  for  an  imperial  statue.  A  few 
of  the  benches  remain  on  the  hillside,  which,  how- 
ever, is  mainly  a  confusion  of  fragments.  There 
is  part  of  a  corridor  built  into  the  hill,  high  up, 
and  on  the  crest  are  the  remnants  of  the  demol- 
ished castle.    The  whole  place  is  a  kind  of  wilder- 


3i8     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

ness  of  ruin ;  there  are  scarcely  any  details ;  the 
great  feature  is  the  overtopping  wall.  This  wall 
being  the  back  of  the  scene,  the  space  left  between 
it  and  the  chord  of  the  semicircle  (of  the  audito- 
rium) which  formed  the  proscenium  is  rather  less 
than  one  would  have  supposed.  In  other  words, 
the  stage  was  very  shallow,  and  appears  to  have 
been  arranged  for  a  number  of  performers  placed 
in  a  line  like  a  company  of  soldiers.  There  stands 
the  silent  skeleton,  however,  as  impressive  by  what 
it  leaves  you  to  guess  and  wonder  about  as  by 
what  it  tells  you.  It  has  not  the  sweetness,  the 
softness  of  melancholy,  of  the  theatre  at  Aries ; 
but  it  is  more  extraordinary,  and  one  can  imagine 
only  tremendous  tragedies  being  enacted  there  — 

"  Presenting  Thebes'  or  Pelops'  line." 

At  either  end  of  the  stage,  coming  forward,  is  an 
immense  wing  —  immense  in  height,  I  mean,  as  it 
reaches  to  the  top  of  the  scenic  wall ;  the  other 
dimensions  are  not  remarkable.  The  division  to 
the  right,  as  you  face  the  stage,  is  pointed  out  as 
the  green-room  ;  its  portentous  altitude  and  the 
open  arches  at  the  top  give  it  the  air  of  a  well. 
The  compartment  on  the  left  is  exactly  similar, 
save  that  it  opens  into  the  traces  of  other  cham- 
bers, said  to  be  those  of  a  hippodrome  adjacent  to 
the  theatre.     Various  fragments  are  visible  which 


ORANGE,    THE   THEATRE 


ORANGE  319 

refer  themselves  plausibly  to  such  an  establish- 
ment ;  the  greater  axis  of  the  hippodrome  would 
appear  to  have  been  on  a  line  with  the  triumphal 
arch.  This  is  all  I  saw,  and  all  there  was  to  see, 
of  Orange,  which  had  a  very  rustic,  bucolic  aspect, 
and  where  I  was  not  even  called  upon  to  demand 
breakfast  at  the  hotel.  The  entrance  of  this  resort 
might  have  been  that  of  a  stable  of  the  Roman 
days. 


XXXVII 

MACON 

I  HAVE  been  trying  to  remember  whether  I 
fasted  all  the  way  to  Macon,  which  I  reached 
at  an  advanced  hour  of  the  evening,  and  think  I 
must  have  done  so  except  for  the  purchase  of  a 
box  of  nougat  at  Montelimart  (the  place  is  famous 
for  the  manufacture  of  this  confection,  which,  at 
the  station,  is  hawked  at  the  windows  of  the  train) 
and  for  a  bouillon,  very  much  later,  at  Lyons. 
The  journey  beside  the  Rhone  —  past  Valence, 
past  Tournon,  past  Vienne  —  would  have  been 
charming,  on  that  luminous  Sunday,  but  for  two 
disagreeable  accidents.  The  express  from  Mar- 
seilles, which  I  took  at  Orange,  was  full  to  over- 
flowing ;  and  the  only  refuge  I  could  find  was  an 
inside  angle  in  a  carriage  laden  with  Grermans  who 
had  command  of  the  windows,  which  they  occu- 
pied as  strongly  as  they  have  been  known  to  oc- 
cupy other  strategical  positions.  I  scarcely  know, 
however,  why  I  linger  on  this  particular  discom- 
fort, for  it  was  but  a  single  item  in  a  considerable 
list  of  grievances  —  grievances  dispersed  through 


MACON  321 

six  weeks  of  constant  railway  travel  in  France.  I 
have  not  touched  upon  them  at  an  earlier  stage  of 
this  chronicle,  but  my  reserve  is  not  owing  to  any 
sweetness  of  association.  This  form  of  locomo- 
tion, in  the  country  of  the  amenities,  is  attended 
with  a  dozen  discomforts ;  almost  all  the  condi- 
tions of  the  business  are  detestable.  They  force 
the  sentimental  tourist  again  and  again  to  ask 
himself  whether,  in  consideration  of  such  mortal 
annoyances,  the  game  is  worth  the  candle.  For- 
tunately a  railway  journey  is  a  good  deal  like  a 
sea  voyage ;  its  miseries  fade  from  the  mind  as 
soon  as  you  arrive.  That  is  why  I  completed,  to 
my  great  satisfaction,  my  little  tour  in  France. 
Let  this  small  effusion  of  ill-nature  be  my  first 
and  last  tribute  to  the  whole  despotic  gave :  the 
deadly  salle  d'attente,  the  insufferable  delays  over 
one's  luggage,  the  porterless  platform,  the  over- 
crowded and  illiberal  train.  How  many  a  time 
did  I  permit  myself  the  secret  reflection  that  it 
is  in  perfidious  Albion  that  they  order  this  matter 
best !  How  many  a  time  did  the  eager  British 
mercenary,  clad  in  velveteen  and  clinging  to  the 
door  of  the  carriage  as  it  glides  into  the  station, 
revisit  my  invidious  dreams  !  The  paternal  porter 
and  the  responsive  hansom  are  among  the  best 
gifts  of  the  English  genius  to  the  world.  I 
hasten  to  add,  faithful  to  my  habit  (so  in  suffer- 


322     A    LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

able  to  some  of  my  friends)  of  ever  and  again 
readjusting  the  balance  after  I  have  given  it  an 
honest  tip,  that  the  bouillon  at  Lyons,  which  I 
spoke  of  above,  was,  though  by  no  means  an 
ideal  bouillon,  much  better  than  any  I  could 
have  obtained  at  an  English  railway  station. 
After  I  had  imbibed  it  I  sat  in  the  train  (which 
waited  a  long  time  at  Lyons)  and,  by  the  light  of 
one  of  the  big  lamps  on  the  platform,  read  all  sorts 
of  disagreeable  things  in  certain  radical  news- 
papers which  I  had  bought  at  the  bookstall,  I 
gathered  from  these  sheets  that  Lyons  was  in  ex- 
treme commotion.  The  Rhone  and  the  Saone, 
which  form  a  girdle  for  the  splendid  town,  were 
almost  in  the  streets,  as  I  could  easily  believe  from 
what  I  had  seen  of  the  country  after  leaving 
Orange.  The  Rhone,  all  the  way  to  Lyons,  had 
been  in  all  sorts  of  places  where  it  had  no  busi- 
ness to  be,  and  matters  were  naturaHy  not  im- 
proved by  its  confluence  with  the  charming  and 
copious  stream  which,  at  Macon,  is  said  once  to 
have  given  such  a  happy  opportunity  to  the  ego- 
tism of  the  capital.  A  visitor  from  Paris  (the 
anecdote  is  very  old),  being  asked  on  the  quay  of 
that  city  whether  he  didn't  admire  the  Saone, 
replied  good-naturedly  that  it  was  very  pretty,  but 
that  in  Paris  they  spelled  it  with  the  ei.  This 
moment   of   general  alarm   at   Lyons   had    been 


LYONS 


MACON  323 

chosen  by  certain  ingenious  persons  (I  credit 
them  perhaps  with  too  sure  a  prevision  of  the  rise 
of  the  rivers)  for  practicing  further  upon  the  ap- 
prehensions of  the  pubUc.  A  bombshell  filled 
with  dynamite  had  been  thrown  into  a  cafe,  and 
various  votaries  of  the  comparatively  innocuous 
petit  verre  had  been  wounded  (I  am  not  sure 
whether  any  one  had  been  killed)  by  the  irruption. 
Of  course  there  had  been  arrests  and  incarcera- 
tions, and  the  "  Intransigeant  "  and  the  "  Rappel " 
were  filled  with  the  echoes  of  the  explosion.  The 
tone  of  these  organs  is  rarely  edifying,  and  it  had 
never  been  less  so  than  on  this  occasion.  I  won- 
dered as  I  looked  through  them  whether  I  was 
losing  all  my  radicalism  ;  and  then  I  wondered 
whether,  after  all,  I  had  any  to  lose.  Even  in  so 
long  a  wait  as  that  tiresome  delay  at  Lyons  I  failed 
to  settle  the  question,  any  more  than  I  made  up 
my  mind  as  to  the  probable  future  of  the  militant 
democracy,  or  the  ultimate  form  of  a  civilization 
which  should  have  blown  up  everything  else.  A 
few  days  later  the  water  went  down  at  Lyons ; 
but  the  democracy  has  not  gone  down. 

I  remember  vividly  the  remainder  of  that  even- 
ing which  I  spent  at  Macon  —  remember  it  with 
a  chattering  of  the  teeth.  I  know  not  what  had 
got  into  the  place ;  the  temperature,  for  the  last 
day   of   October,    was    eccentric   and   incredible. 


324    A   LITTLE  TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

These  epithets  may  also  be  applied  to  the  hotel 
itself  —  an  extraordinary  structure,  all  fagade, 
which  exposes  an  uncovered  rear  to  the  gaze  of 
nature.  There  is  a  demonstrative,  voluble  land- 
lady, who  is  of  course  part  of  the  facade ;  but 
everything  behind  her  is  a  trap  for  the  winds,  with 
chambers,  corridors,  staircases  all  exhibited  to  the 
sky  as  if  the  outer  wall  of  the  house  had  been 
lifted  off.  It  would  have  been  delightful  for 
Florida,  but  it  did  n't  do  for  Burgundy  even  on 
the  eve  of  November  i,  so  that  I  suffered  absurdly 
from  the  rigor  of  a  season  that  had  not  yet  be- 
gun. There  was  something  in  the  air ;  I  felt  it 
the  next  day,  even  on  the  sunny  quay  of  the 
Saone,  where  in  spite  of  a  fine  southerly  exposure 
I  extracted  little  warmth  from  the  reflection  that 
Alphonse  de  Lamartine  had  often  trodden  the 
flags.  Macon  struck  me,  somehow,  as  suffering 
from  a  chronic  numbness,  and  there  was  nothing 
exceptionally  cheerful  in  the  remarkable  extension 
of  the  river.  It  was  no  longer  a  river  —  it  had 
become  a  lake  ;  and  from  my  window,  in  the 
painted  face  of  the  inn,  I  saw  that  the  opposite 
bank  had  been  moved  back,  as  it  were,  indefi- 
nitely. Unfortunately  the  various  objects  with 
which  it  was  furnished  had  not  been  moved  as 
well,  the  consequence  of  which  was  an  extraordi- 
nary confusion  in  the  relations  of  things.     There 


MACON  325 

were  always  poplars  to  be  seen,  but  the  poplar  had 
become  an  aquatic  plant.  Such  phenomena,  how- 
ever, at  Macon  attract  but  little  attention,  as  the 
Saone,  at  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  is  nothing 
if  not  expansive.  The  people  are  as  used  to  it 
as  they  appeared^ to  be  to  the  bronze  statue  of 
Lamartine,  which  is  the  principal  monument  of 
the  place,  and  which,  representing  the  poet  in  a 
frogged  overcoat  and  top-boots,  improvising  in  a 
high  wind,  struck  me  as  even  less  casual  in  its 
attitude  than  monumental  sculpture  usually  suc- 
ceeds in  being.  It  is  true  that  in  its  present  posi- 
tion I  thought  better  of  this  work  of  art,  which  is 
from  the  hand  of  M.  Falquiere,  than  when  I  had 
seen  it  through  the  factitious  medium  of  the  Salon 
of  1876.  I  walked  up  the  hill  where  the  older 
part  of  Macon  lies,  in  search  of  the  natal  house  of 
the  amant  cV Elvire,  the  Petrarch  whose  Vaucluse 
was  the  bosom  of  the  public.  The  Guide-Joanne 
quotes  from  "  Les  Confidences  "  a  description  of 
the  birthplace  of  the  poet,  whose  treatment  of  the 
locality  is  indeed  poetical.  It  tallies  strangely 
little  with  the  reality,  either  as  regards  position  or 
other  features  ;  and  it  may  be  said  to  be  not  an 
aid,  but  a  direct  obstacle,  to  a  discovery  of  the 
house.  A  very  humble  edifice,  in  a  small  back 
street,  is  designated  by  a  municipal  tablet,  set  into 
its  face,  as  the  scene  of   Lamartine's  advent  into 


326     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

the  world.  He  himself  speaks  of  a  vast  and  lofty 
structure,  at  the  angle  of  a  place,  adorned  with 
iron  clamps,  with  2i  porte  haute  et  large  and  many 
other  peculiarities.  The  house  with  the  tablet 
has  two  meagre  stories  above  the  basement,  and 
(at  present,  at  least)  an  air  of  extreme  shabbiness  ; 
the  place,  moreover,  never  can  have  been  vast. 
Lamartine  was  accused  of  writing  history  incor- 
rectly, and  apparently  he  started  wrong  at  first ; 
it  had  never  become  clear  to  him  where  he  was 
born.  Or  is  the  tablet  wrong  }  If  the  house  is 
small,  the  tablet  is  very  big. 


XXXVIII 

BOURG-EN-BRESSE 

THE  foregoing  reflections  occur,  in  a  cruder 
form,  as  it  were,  in  my  note-book,  where  I 
find  this  remark  appended  to  them  :  "  Don't  take 
leave  of  Lamartine  on  that  contemptuous  note ;  it 
will  be  easy  to  think  of  something  more  sympa- 
thetic ! ''  Those  friends  of  mine,  mentioned  a 
little  while  since,  who  accuse  me  of  always  tipping 
back  the  balance,  could  not  desire  a  paragraph 
more  characteristic ;  but  I  wish  to  give  no  fur- 
ther evidence  of  such  infirmities,  and  will  there- 
fore hurry  away  from  the  subject  —  hurry  away  in 
the  train  which,  very  early  on  a  crisp,  bright  morn- 
ing, conveyed  me,  by  way  of  an  excursion,  to  the 
ancient  city  of  Bourg-en-Bresse.  Shining  in  early 
light,  the  Saone  was  spread,  like  a  smooth  white 
tablecloth,  over  a  considerable  part  of  the  flat 
country  that  I  traversed.  There  is  no  provision 
made  in  this  image  for  the  long,  transparent 
screens  of  thin-twigged  trees  which  rose  at  inter- 
vals out  of  the  watery  plain  ;  but  as,  in  all  the  con- 
ditions, there  seemed  to  be  no  provision  for  them 


328     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

in  fact,  I  will  let  my  metaphor  go  for  what  it  is 
worth.  My  journey  was  (as  I  remember  it)  of 
about  an  hour  and  a  half ;  but  I  passed  no  object 
of  interest,  as  the  phrase  is,  whatever.  The  phrase 
hardly  applies,  even  to  Bourg  itself,  which  is 
simply  a  town  qtieiconque,  as  M.  Zola  would  say. 
Small,  peaceful,  rustic,  it  stands  in  the  midst  of 
the  great  dairy-feeding  plains  of  Bresse,  of  which 
fat  county,  sometime  property  of  the  house  of 
Savoy,  it  was  the  modest  capital.  The  blue  masses 
of  the  Jura  give  it  a  creditable  horizon,  but  the 
only  nearer  feature  it  can  point  to  is  its  famous 
sepulchral  church.  This  edifice  lies  at  a  fortunate 
distance  from  the  town,  which,  though  inoffensive, 
is  of  too  common  a  stamp  to  consort  with  such  a 
treasure.  All  I  ever  knew  of  the  church  of  Brou 
I  had  gathered,  years  ago,  from  Matthew  Arnold's 
beautiful  poem,  which  bears  its  name.  I  remem- 
ber thinking,  in  those  years,  that  it  was  impossible 
verses  could  be  more  touching  than  these  ;  and  as 
I  stood  before  the  object  of  my  pilgrimage,  in  the 
gay  French  light  (though  the  place  was  so  dull),  I 
recalled  the  spot  where  I  had  first  read  them  and 
where  I  had  read  them  again  and  yet  again,  won- 
dering whether  it  would  ever  be  my  fortune  to 
visit  the  church  of  Brou.  The  spot  in  question 
was  an  armchair  in  a  window  which  looked  out  on 
some  cows  in  a  field ;  and  whenever  I  glanced  at 


BOURG-EN-BRESSE  329 

the  cows  it  came  over  me  —  I  scarcely  know  why 
—  that  I  should  probably  never  behold  the  struc- 
ture reared  by  the  Duchess  Margaret.  Some  of 
our  visions  never  come  to  pass ;  but  we  must  be 
just  —  others  do.  "So  sleep,  forever  sleep,  O 
princely  pair !  "  I  remembered  that  line  of  Mat- 
thew Arnold's,  and  the  stanza  about  the  Duchess 
Margaret  coming  to  watch  the  builders  on  her 
palfrey  white.  Then  there  came  to  me  something 
in  regard  to  the  moon  shining  on  winter  nights 
through  the  cold  clere-story.  The  tone  of  the 
place  at  that  hour  was  not  at  all  lunar  ;  it  was  cold 
and  bright,  but  with  the  chill  of  an  autumn  morn- 
ing ;  yet  this,  even  with  the  fact  of  the  unexpected 
remoteness  of  the  church  from  the  Jura  added  to 
it,  did  not  prevent  me  from  feeling  that  I  looked 
at  a  monument  in  the  production  of  which  —  or  at 
least  in  the  effect  of  which  on  the  tourist  mind 
of  to-day  —  Matthew  Arnold  had  been  much  con- 
cerned. By  a  pardonable  license  he  has  placed  it 
a  few  miles  nearer  to  the  forests  of  the  Jura  than 
it  stands  at  present.  It  is  very  true  that,  though 
the  mountains  in  the  sixteenth  century  can  hardly 
have  been  in  a  different  position,  the  plain  which 
separates  the  church  from  them  may  have  been 
bedecked  with  woods.  The  visitor  to-day  cannot 
help  wondering  why  the  beautiful  building,  with 
its  splendid  works  of  art,  is  dropped  down  in  that 


330     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

particular  spot,  which  looks  so  accidental  and 
arbitrary.  But  there  are  reasons  for  most  things, 
and  there  were  reasons  why  the  church  of  Brou 
should  be  at  Brou,  which  is  a  vague  little  suburb 
of  a  vague  little  town. 

The  responsibility  rests,  at  any  rate,  upon  the 
Duchess  Margaret  —  Margaret  of  Austria,  daugh- 
ter of  the  Emperor  Maximilian  and  his  wife  Mary 
of  Burgundy,  daughter  of  Charles  the  Bold.  This 
lady  has  a  high  name  in  history,  having  been  re- 
gent of  the  Netherlands  in  behalf  of  her  nephew, 
the  Emperor  Charles  V.,  of  whose  early  education 
she  had  had  the  care.  She  married  in  1501  Phili- 
bert  the  Handsome,  Duke  of  Savoy,  to  whom  the 
province  of  Bresse  belonged,  and  who  died  two 
years  later.  She  had  been  betrothed,  as  a  child,  to 
Charles  VIII.  of  France,  and  was  kept  for  some 
time  at  the  French  court  —  that  of  her  prospec- 
tive father-in-law,  Louis  XL  ;  but  she  was  eventu- 
ally repudiated,  in  order  that  her  fiance^  might 
marry  Anne  of  Brittany  —  an  alliance  so  magnifi- 
cently political  that  we  almost  condone  the  offense 
to  a  sensitive  princess.  Margaret  did  not  want 
for  husbands,  however,  inasmuch  as  before  her 
marriage  to  Philibert  she  had  been  united  to  John 
of  Castile,  son  of  Ferdinand  V.,  King  of  Aragon 
—  an  episode  terminated,  by  the  death  of  the 
Spanish  prince,  within  a  year.     She  was  twenty- 


BOURG-EN-BRESSE  331 

two  years  regent  of  the  Netherlands,  and  died,  at 
fifty-one,  in  1530.  She  might  have  been,  had  she 
chosen,  the  wife  of  Henry  VII.  of  England.  She 
was  one  of  the  signers  of  the  League  of  Cambray 
against  the  Venetian  republic,  and  was  a  most 
politic,  accomplished,  and  judicious  princess.  She 
undertook  to  build  the  church  of  Brou  as  a  mauso- 
leum for  her  second  husband  and  herself,  in  fulfill- 
ment of  a  vow  made  by  Margaret  of  Bourbon, 
mother  of  Philibert,  who  died  before  she  could 
redeem  her  pledge,  and  who  bequeathed  the  duty 
to  her  son.  He  died  shortly  afterwards,  and  his 
widow  assumed  the  pious  task.  According  to 
Murray,  she  intrusted  the  erection  of  the  church 
to  "  Maistre  Loys  von  Berghem,"  and  the  sculp- 
ture to  *'  Maistre  Conrad."  The  author  of  a  super- 
stitious but  carefully  prepared  little  Notice  which 
I  bought  at  Bourg  calls  the  architect  and  sculptor 
(at  once)  Jehan  de  Paris,  author  (sic)  of  the  tomb 
of  Francis  II.  of  Brittany,  to  which  we  gave  some 
attention  at  Nantes,  and  which  the  writer  of  my 
pamphlet  ascribes  only  subordinately  to  Michel 
Colomb.  The  church,  which  is  not  of  great  size, 
is  in  the  last  and  most  flamboyant  phase  of  gothic, 
and  in  admirable  preservation ;  the  west  front, 
before  which  a  quaint  old  sun-dial  is  laid  out  on 
the  ground  —  a  circle  of  numbers  marked  in 
stone,  like  those  on  a  clock-face,  let  into  the  earth 


332     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

—  is  covered  with  delicate  ornament.  The  great 
feature,  however  (the  nave  is  perfectly  bare  and 
wonderfully  new-looking,  though  the  warden,  a 
stolid  yet  sharp  old  peasant  in  a  blouse,  who  looked 
more  as  if  his  line  were  chaffering  over  turnips 
than  showing  off  works  of  art,  told  me  that  it  has 
never  been  touched,  and  that  its  freshness  is 
simply  the  quality  of  the  stone)  —  the  gi-eat  fea- 
ture is  the  admirable  choir,  in  the  midst  of  which 
the  three  monuments  have  bloomed  under  the 
chisel  like  exotic  plants  in  a  conservatory.  I  saw 
the  place  to  small  advantage,  for  the  stained  glass 
of  the  windows,  which  are  fine,  was  under  repair, 
and  much  of  it  was  masked  with  planks. 

In  the  centre  lies  Philibert-le-Bel,  a  figure  of 
white  marble  on  a  great  slab  of  black,  in  his  robes 
and  his  armor,  with  two  boy-angels  holding  a  tablet 
at  his  head,  and  two  more  at  his  feet.  On  either 
side  of  him  is  another  cherub  ;  one  guarding  his 
helmet,  the  other  his  stiff  gauntlets.  The  atti- 
tudes of  these  charming  children,  whose  faces  are 
all  bent  upon  •  him  in  pity,  have  the  prettiest 
tenderness  and  respect.  The  table  on  which  he 
lies  is  supported  by  elaborate  columns  adorned 
with  niches  containing  little  images  and  with 
every  other  imaginable  elegance  ;  and  beneath  it 
he  is  represented  in  that  other  form  so  common 
in  the  tombs  of  the  Renaissance  —  a  man  naked 


THE   CHURCH   OF    BROU 


BOURG-EN-BRESSE  333 

and  dying,  with  none  of  the  state  and  splendor  of 
the  image  above.  One  of  these  figures  embodies 
the  duke,  the  other  simply  the  mortal ;  and  there  is 
something  very  strange  and  striking  in  the  effect 
of  the  latter,  seen  dimly  and  with  difficulty  through 
the  intervals  of  the  rich  supports  of  the  upper 
slab.  The  monument  of  Margaret  herself  is  on 
the  left,  all  in  white  marble  tormented  into  a  mul- 
titude of  exquisite  patterns,  the  last  extravagance 
of  a  gothic  which  had  gone  so  far  that  nothing 
was  left  it  but  to  return  upon  itself.  Unlike  her 
husband,  who  has  only  the  high  roof  of  the  church 
above  him,  she  lies  under  a  canopy  supported  and 
covered  by  a  wilderness  of  embroidery  —  flowers, 
devices,  initials,  arabesques,  statuettes.  Watched 
over  by  cherubs,  she  is  also  in  her  robes  and 
ermine,  with  a  greyhound  sleeping  at  her  feet 
(her  husband,  at  his,  has  a  waking  lion)  ;  and  the 
artist  has  not,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  represented 
her  as  more  beautiful  than  she  was.  She  looks 
indeed  like  the  regent  of  a  turbulent  realm.  Be- 
neath her  couch  is  stretched  another  figure  —  a 
less  brilliant  Margaret,  wrapped  in  her  shroud, 
with  her  long  hair  over  her  shoulders.  Round  the 
tomb  is  the  battered  iron  railing  placed  there  ori- 
ginally, with  the  mysterious  motto  of  the  duchess 
worked  into  the  top  — fortune  inforUine  fort  ime. 
The  other  two  monuments  are  protected  by  bar- 


334     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

riers  of  the  same  pattern.  That  of  Margaret  of 
Bourbon,  PhiUbert's  mother,  stands  on  the  right 
of  the  choir ;  and  I  suppose  its  greatest  distinction 
is  that  it  should  have  been  erected  to  a  mother-in- 
law.  It  is  but  little  less  florid  and  sumptuous 
than  the  others  ;  it  has,  however,  no  second  re- 
cumbent figure.  On  the  other  hand,  the  statuettes 
that  surround  the  base  of  the  tomb  are  of  even 
more  exquisite  workmanship  :  they  represent  weep- 
ing women,  in  long  mantles  and  hoods,  which 
latter  hang  forward  over  the  small  face  of  the 
figure,  giving  the  artist  a  chance  to  carve  the 
features  within  this  hollow  of  drapery  —  an  ex- 
traordinary play  of  skill.  There  is  a  high,  white 
marble  shrine  of  the  Virgin,  as  extraordinary  as 
all  the  rest  (a  series  of  compartments  representing 
the  various  scenes  of  her  life,  with  the  Assumption 
in  the  middle) ;  and  there  is  a  magnificent  series 
of  stalls,  which  are  simply  the  intricate  embroidery 
of  the  tombs  translated  into  polished  oak.  All  * 
these  things  are  splendid,  ingenious,  elaborate, 
precious  ;  it  is  goldsmith's  work  on  a  monumental 
scale,  and  the  general  effect  is  none  the  less  beau- 
tiful and  solemn  because  it  is  so  rich.  But  the 
monuments  of  the  church  of  Brou  are  not  the  no- 
blest that  one  may  see  ;  the  great  tombs  of  Verona 
are  finer,  and  various  other  early  Italian  work. 
These  things  are  not  insincere,  as  Ruskin  would 


BOURG-EN-BRESSE  335 

say ;  but  they  are  pretentious,  and  they  are  not 
positively  na'ifs.  I  should  mention  that  the  walls 
of  the  choir  are  embroidered  in  places  with  Mar- 
garet's tantalizing  device,  which  —  partly  perhaps 
because  it  is  tantalizing  —  is  so  very  decorative,  as 
they  say  in  London.  I  know  not  whether  she  was 
acquainted  with  this  epithet ;  but  she  had  antici- 
pated one  of  the  fashions  most  characteristic  of 
our  age. 

One  asks  one's  self  how  all  this  decoration,  this 
luxury  of  fair  and  chiseled  marble,  survived  the 
French  Revolution.  An  hour  of  liberty  in  the 
choir  of  Brou  would  have  been  a  carnival  for  the 
image  breakers.  The  well-fed  Bressois  are  surely 
a  good-natured  people.  I  call  them  well  fed  both 
on  general  and  on  particular  grounds.  Their  pro- 
vince has  the  most  savory  aroma,  and  I  found  an 
opportunity  to  test  its  reputation.  I  walked  back 
into  the  town  from  the  church  (there  was  really 
rfothing  to  be  seen  by  the  way),  and  as  the  hour 
of  the  midday  breakfast  had  struck,  directed  my 
steps  to  the  inn.  The  table  d^hote  was  going  on, 
and  a  gracious,  bustling,  talkative  landlady  wel- 
comed me.  I  had  an  excellent  repast  —  the  best 
repast  possible  —  which  consisted  simply  of  boiled 
eggs  and  bread  and  butter.  It  was  the  quality  of 
these  simple  ingredients  that  made  the  occasion 
memorable.     The  eggs  were  so  good  that  I  am 


336     A    LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

ashamed  to  say  how  many  of  them  I  consumed. 
"  La  plus  belle  fille  du  monde,"  as  the  French 
proverb  says,  "  ne  peut  donner  que  ce  qu'elle  a ;  " 
and  it  might  seem  that  an  egg  which  has  suc- 
ceeded in  being  fresh  has  done  all  that  can  rea- 
sonably be  expected  of  it.  But  there  was  a  bloom 
of  punctuality,  so  to  speak,  about  these  eggs  of 
Bourg,  as  if  it  had  been  the  intention  of  the  very 
hens  themselves  that  they  should  be  promptly 
served.  "  Nous  sommes  en  Bresse,  et  le  beurre 
n'est  pas  mauvais,"  the  landlady  said,  with  a  sort 
of  dry  coquetry,  as  she  placed  this  article  before 
me.  It  was  the  poetry  of  butter,  and  I  ate  a 
pound  or  two  of  it ;  after  which  I  came  away  with 
a  strange  mixture  of  impressions  of  late  gothic 
sculpture  and  thick  tartines.  I  came  away  through 
the  town,  where,  on  a  little  green  promenade, 
facing  the  hotel,  is  a  bronze  statue  of  Bichat  the 
physiologist,  who  was  a  Bressois.  I  mention  it, 
not  on  account  of  its  merit  (though,  as  statues  go, 
I  don't  remember  that  it  is  bad),  but  because  I 
learned  from  it  —  my  ignorance,  doubtless,  did  me 
little  honor  —  that  Bichat  had  died  at  thirty  years 
of  age,  and  this  revelation  was  almost  agitating. 
To  have  done  so  much  in  so  short  a  life  was  to  be 
truly  great.  This  reflection,  which  looks  deplor- 
ably trite  as  I  write  it  here,  had  the  effect  of  elo- 
quence as  I  uttered  it  for  my  own  benefit  on  the 
bare  little  mall  at  Bourg. 


XXXIX 

BEAUNE 

ON  my  return  to  Macon  I  found  myself  fairly 
face  to  face  with  the  fact  that  my  tour 
was  near  its  end.  Dijon  had  been  marked  by  fate 
as  its  farthest  limit,  and  Dijon  was  close  at  hand. 
After  that  I  was  to  drop  the  tourist  and  reenter 
Paris  as  much  as  possible  like  a  Parisian.  Out  of 
Paris  the  Parisian  never  loiters,  and  therefore  it 
would  be  impossible  for  me  to  stop  between  Dijon 
and  the  capital.  But  I  might  be  a  tourist  a  few 
hours  longer  by  stopping  somewhere  between 
Macon  and  Dijon.  The  question  was  where  I 
should  spend  these  hours.  Where  better,  I  asked 
myself  (for  reasons  not  now  entirely  clear  to  me), 
than  at  Beaune  .-*  On  my  way  to  this  town  I 
passed  the  stretch  of  the  Cote  d'Or,  which,  cov- 
ered with  a  mellow  autumn  haze,  with  the  sun- 
shine shimmering  through,  looked  indeed  like  a 
golden  slope.  One  regards  with  a  kind  of  awe 
the  region  in  which  the  famous  a^ils  of  Burgundy 
(Vougeot,  Chambertin,  Nuits,  Beaune)  are,  I  was 
going  to  say,  manufactured.     Adieu,  paniers  ;  ven- 


338     A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

danges  sont  faites  !  The  vintage  was  over  ;  the 
shrunken  russet  fibres  alone  clung  to  their  ugly 
stick.  The  horizon  on  the  left  of  the  road  had  a 
charm,  however ;  there  is  something  picturesque 
in  the  big,  comfortable  shoulders  of  the  Cote. 
That  delicate  critic,  M.  Emile  Montegut,  in  a 
charming  record  of  travel  through  this  region 
published  some  years  ago,  praises  Shakespeare  for 
having  talked  (in  "  Lear ")  of  "  waterish  Bur- 
gundy." Vinous  Burgundy  would  surely  be  more 
to  the  point.  I  stopped  at  Beaune  in  pursuit  of 
the  picturesque,  but  I  might  almost  have  seen 
the  little  I  discovered  without  stopping.  It  is  a 
drowsy  Burgundian  town,  very  old  and  ripe,  with 
crooked  streets,  vistas  always  oblique,  and  steep, 
moss-covered  roofs.  The  principal  lion  is  the 
Hopital-Saint-Esprit,  or  the  Hotel-Dieu  simply,  as 
they  call  it  there,  founded  in  1443  by  Nicholas 
Rollin,  Chancellor  of  Burgundy.  It  is  adminis- 
tered by  the  sisterhood  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  is 
one  of  the  most  venerable  and  stately  of  hospitals. 
The  face  it  presents  to  the  street  is  simple,  but 
striking  —  a  plain,  windowless  wall,  surmounted 
by  a  vast  slate  roof,  of  almost  mountainous  steep- 
ness. Astride  this  roof  sits  a  tall,  slate-covered 
spire,  from  which,  as  I  arrived,  the  prettiest 
chimes  I  ever  heard  (worse  luck  to  them,  as  I  will 
presently  explain)  were  ringing.     Over  the  door  is 


HOPITAL-SAINT-ESPRIT,    BEAUNE 


•  •  •      • 

•  •  •     • 

•  •    •   • 

>•  •    •  • 


•    •        '  •.  • 


••••    •••• 


BEAUNE  339 

a  high,  quaint  canopy,  without  supports,  with  its 
vault  painted  blue  and  covered  with  gilded  stars. 
(This,  and  indeed  the  whole  building,  have  lately 
been  restored,  and  its  antiquity  is  quite  of  the 
spick-and-span  order.  But  it  is  very  delightful.) 
The  treasure  of  the  place  is  a  precious  picture  — 
a  Last  Judgment,  attributed  equally  to  John  van 
Eyck  and  Roger  van  der  Weyden  —  given  to  the 
hospital  in  the  fifteenth  century  by  Nicholas 
Rollin  aforesaid. 

I  learned,  however,  to  my  dismay,  from  a  sym- 
pathizing but  inexorable  concierge,  that  what  re- 
mained to  me  of  the  time  I  had  to  spend  at 
Beaune,  between  trains  —  I  had  rashly  wasted  half 
an  hour  of  it  in  breakfasting  at  the  station  —  was 
the  one  hour  of  the  day  (that  of  the  dinner  of  the 
nuns ;  the  picture  is  in  their  refectory)  during 
which  the  treasure  could  not  be  shown.  The  pur- 
pose of  the  musical  chimes  to  which  I  had  so  art- 
lessly listened  was  to  usher  in  this  fruitless  interval. 
The  regulation  was  absolute,  and  my  disappoint- 
ment relative,  as  I  have  been  happy  to  reflect  since 
I  "  looked  up "  the  picture.  Crowe  and  Caval- 
caselle  assign  it  without  hesitation  to  Roger  van 
der  Weyden,  and  give  a  weak  little  drawing  of  it  in 
their  "Flemish  Painters."  I  learn  from  them 
also  —  what  I  was  ignorant  of  —  that  Nicholas 
Rollin,  Chancellor  of    Burgundy  and  founder  of 


340    A   LITTLE   TOUR   IN    FRANCE 

the  establishment  at  Beaune,  was  the  original  of 
the  worthy  kneeling  before  the  Virgin  in  the  mag- 
nificent John  van  Eyck  of  the  Salon  Carre.  All 
I  could  see  was  the  court  of  the  hospital  and  two 
or  three  rooms.  The  court,  with  its  tall  roofs,  its 
pointed  gables  and  spires,  its  wooden  galleries,  its 
ancient  well,  with  an  elaborate  superstructure  of 
wrought  iron,  is  one  of  those  places  into  which  a 
sketcher  ought  to  be  let  loose.  It  looked  Flemish 
or  English  rather  than  French,  and  a  splendid 
tidiness  pervaded  it.  The  porter  took  me  into  two 
rooms  on  the  ground-floor,  into  which  the  sketcher 
should  also  be  allowed  to  penetrate ;  for  they 
made  irresistible  pictures.  One  of  them,  of  great 
proportions,  painted  in  elaborate  "  subjects,"  like 
a  ball-room  of  the  seventeenth  century,  was  filled 
with  the  beds  of  patients,  all  draped  in  curtains  of 
dark  red  cloth,  the  traditional  uniform  of  these 
eleemosynary  couches.  Among  them  the  sisters 
moved  about  in  their  robes  of  white  flannel,  with 
big  white  linen  hoods.  The  other  room  was  a 
strange,  immense  apartment,  lately  restored  with 
much  splendor.  It  was  of  great  length  and  height, 
had  a  painted  and  gilded  barrel-roof,  and  one  end 
of  it  —  the  one  I  was  introduced  to — appeared  to 
serve  as  a  chapel,  as  two  white-robed  sisters  were 
on  their  knees  befqre  an  altar.  This  was  divided 
by  red  curtains   from   the  larger   part ;  but  the 


BEAUNE  341 

porter  lifted  one  of  the  curtains  and  showed  me 
that  the  rest  of  it,  a  long,  imposing  vista,  served 
as  a  ward  lined  with  little  red-draped  beds.  ''  C'est 
I'heure  de  la  lecture,"  remarked  my  guide  ;  and  a 
group  of  convalescents  —  all  the  patients  I  saw 
were  women  —  were  gathered  in  the  centre  around 
a  nun,  the  points  of  whose  white  hood  nodded  a 
little  above  them,  and  whose  gentle  voice  came  to 
us  faintly,  with  a  little  echo,  down  the  high  per- 
spective. I  know  not  what  the  good  sister  was 
reading  —  a  dull  book,  I  am  afraid  —  but  there 
was  so  much  color  and  such  a  fine,  rich  air  of  tra- 
dition about  the  whole  place  that  it  seemed  to  me 
I  would  have  risked  listening  to  her.  I  turned 
away,  however,  with  that  sense  of  defeat  which  is 
always  irritating  to  the  appreciative  tourist,  and 
pottered  about  Beaune  rather  vaguely  for  the  rest 
of  my  hour  :  looked  at  the  statue  of  Gaspard 
Monge,  the  mathematician,  in  the  little  place  (there 
is  no  place  in  France  too  little  to  contain  an  effigy 
to  a  glorious  son) ;  at  the  fine  old  porch  —  com- 
pletely despoiled  at  the  Revolution  —  of  the  prin- 
cipal church  ;  and  even  at  the  meagre  treasures  of 
a  courageous  but  melancholy  little  museum,  which 
has  been  arranged  —  part  of  it  being  the  gift  of  a 
local  collector  —  in  a  small  hotel  de  ville.  I  car- 
ried away  from  Beaune  the  impression  of  some- 
thing mildly  autumnal  —  something  rusty  yet 
kindly,  like  the  taste  of  a  sweet  russet  pear. 


XL 

DIJON 

IT  was  very  well  that  my  little  tour  was  to  ter- 
minate at  Dijon ;  for  I  found,  rather  to  my 
chagrin,  that  there  was  not  a  great  deal,  from  the 
pictorial  point  of  view,  to  be  done  with  Dijon.  It 
was  no  great  matter,  for  I  held  my  proposition  to 
have  been  by  this  time  abundantly  demonstrated 
—  the  proposition  with  which  I  started  :  that  if 
Paris  is  France,  France  is  by  no  means  Paris.  If 
Dijon  was  a  good  deal  of  a  disappointment,  I  felt 
therefore  that  I  could  afford  it.  It  was  time  for 
me  to  reflect,  also,  that  for  my  disappointments, 
as  a  general  thing,  I  had  only  myself  to  thank. 
They  had  too  often  been  the  consequence  of  arbi- 
trary preconceptions  produced  by  influences  of 
which  I  had  lost  the  trace.  At  any  rate  I  will  say 
plumply  that  the  ancient  capital  of  Burgundy  is 
wanting  in  character ;  it  is  not  up  to  the  mark. 
It  is  old  and  narrow  and  crooked,  and  it  has  been 
left  pretty  well  to  itself :  but  it  is  not  high  and 
overhanging ;  it  is  not,  to  the  eye,  what  the  Bur- 
gundian  capital  should  be.     It  has  some  tortuous 


DIJON  343 

vistas,  some  mossy  roofs,  some  bulging  fronts, 
some  gray-faced  hotels,  which  look  as  if  in  former 
centuries  —  in  the  last,  for  instance,  during  the 
time  of  that  delightful  President  de  Brosses  whose 
Letters  from  Italy  throw  an  interesting  sidelight 
on  Dijon — they  had  witnessed  a  considerable 
amount  of  good  living.  But  there  is  nothing  else. 
I  speak  as  a  man  who,  for  some  reason  which  he 
does  n't  remember  now,  did  not  pay  a  visit  to  the 
celebrated  Puits  de  Moi'se,  an  ancient  cistern  em- 
bellished with  a  sculptured  figure  of  the  Hebrew 
lawgiver. 

The  ancient  palace  of  the  dukes  of  Burgundy, 
long  since  converted  into  an  hotel  de  ville,  pre- 
sents to  a  wide,  clean  court,  paved  with  washed- 
looking  stones,  and  to  a  small  semicircular  place^ 
opposite,  which  looks  as  if  it  had  tried  to  be  sym- 
metrical and  had  failed,  a  fagade  and  two  wings 
characterized  by  the  stiffness,  but  not  by  the 
grand  air,  of  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury. It  contains,  however,  a  large  and  rich 
museum  —  a  museum  really  worthy  of  a  capital. 
The  gem  of  this  collection  is  the  great  banqueting- 
hall  of  the  old  palace,  one  of  the  few  features  of 
the  place  that  has  not  been  essentially  altered. 
Of  great  height,  roofed  with  the  old  beams  and 
cornices,  it  exhibits,  filling  one  end,  a  colossal 
gothic  chimney-piece  with  a  fireplace  large  enough 


344     A   LITTLE   TOUR    IN    FRANCE 

to  roast,  not  an  ox,  but  a  herd  of  oxen.  In  the 
middle  of  this  striking  hall,  the  walls  of  which  are 
covered  with  objects  more  or  less  precious,  have 
been  placed  the  tombs  of  Philippe-le-Hardi  and 
Jean-sans-Peur.  These  monuments,  very  splendid 
in  their  general  effect,  have  a  limited  interest. 
The  limitation  comes  from  the  fact  that  we  see 
them  to-day  in  a  transplanted  and  mutilated  con- 
dition. Placed  originally  in  a  church  which  has 
disappeared  from  the  face  of  the  earth,  demolished 
and  dispersed  at  the  Revolution,  they  have  been 
reconstructed  and  restored  out  of  fragments  re- 
covered and  pieced  together.  The  piecing  has 
been  beautifully  done  ;  it  is  covered  with  gilt  and 
with  brilliant  paint ;  the  whole  result  is  most  ar- 
tistic. But  the  spell  of  the  old  mortuary  figures 
is  broken,  and  it  will  never  work  again.  Mean- 
while the  monuments  are  immensely  decorative. 

I  think  the  thing  that  pleased  me  best  at  Dijon 
was  the  little  old  Pare,  a  charming  public  garden, 
about  a  mile  from  the  town,  to  which  I  walked  by 
a  long,  straight  autumnal  avenue.  It  is  a  jardin 
franqais,  of  the  last  century  —  a  dear  old  place, 
with  little  blue-green  perspectives  and  alleys  and 
7viid-points,  in  which  everything  balances.  I  went 
there  late  in  the  afternoon,  without  meeting  a 
creature,  though  I  had  hoped  I  should  meet  the 
President  de  Brosses.    At  the  end  of  it  was  a  little 


''^ltiil4Mi'to# 


PUBLIC   GARDEN,   DIJON 


•  •  • 

•  •  • 

•  •    • 


•      ♦        •   •  ••  ,•- 
•   •    •       •   ••    * 


•  •  • 


DIJON  345 

river  that  looked  like  a  canal,  and  on  the  further 
bank  was  an  old-fashioned  villa,  close  to  the  water, 
with  a  little  French  garden  of  its  own.  On  the 
hither  side  was  a  bench,  on  which  I  seated  myself, 
lingering  a  good  while ;  for  this  was  just  the  sort 
of  place  'I  like.  It  was  the  furthermost  point  of 
my  little  tour.  I  thought  that  over,  as  I  sat  there, 
on  the  eve  of  taking  the  express  to  Paris ;  and  as 
the  light  faded  in  the  Pare  the  vision  of  some  of 
the  things  I  had  enjoyed  became  more  distinct. 


INDEX 


AiGUES-MoRTES,  the  ride  thither  from 
Nimes,  234;  its  location  and  walls, 
235 ;  its  port,  237  ;  within  the  walls, 
238;  the  citadel,  238. 

Alpilles,  274. 

Amboise,  59-67  ;  castle  of,  its  location 
and  owner,  60  ;  described,  62 ;  his- 
tory connected  with,  64. 

Angers,  129-135  ;  its  historic  interest, 
130  ;  its  chateau,  131  ;  its  interest- 
ing houses,  134. 

Angouleme,  glimpse  of,  167. 

Anne  of  Brittany,  tomb  of  her  chil- 
dren at  Tours,  15  ;  married  Louis 
XII.,  64  ;  her  first  marriage,  89;  ora- 
tory of,  at  Loches,  96  ;  Nantes  part 
of  her  dowry,  139 ;  tomb  erected  by 
her  to  her  parents,  142. 

Aries,  inns  at,  258 ;  a  dame  de  comp- 
toir  of,  261;  the  arena,  263;  the 
theatre,  264  ;  the  museum,  270. 

Arnold,  Matthew-,  his  poem  on  the 
church  of  Brou,  328. 

"  Aventures  Prodigieuses  de  Tarta- 
rin,  Les,"  Daudet's,  249. 

Avignon,  first  visit  to,  285 ;  the  musee, 
288 ;  the  Papal  palace,  289  ;  bridge 
over  the  Rhone  at,  290  ;  present 
condition  of  the  Papal  palace,  291 ; 
Villeneuve,  294 ;  the  walls,  299 ; 
overflowed  by  the  Rhone,  301. 

Azay-le-Rideau,  described,  81-85. 

Balue,  Cardinal    La,    confined    in    a 

cage,  94. 
Balzac,  Honore  de,  a   child   of  Tou-  j 

raine,  9.  j 

Baux,   Les,    262 ;    expedition    thither  I 

from  Aries,  273;   its  location,   277  ; 

former  splendor,   280  ;  general  as-  j 

pect  at  present,  281. 
Beaucaire,  castle  of,  254  ;  formerly  the 

scene  of  a  great  fair,  255. 


Beaune, 337-341. 

Berengaria,  Queen,  house  of,  at  Le 
Mans,  123  ;  tomb  of,  126. 

Bemardin  des  Baux,  bequeathed  Les 
Baux  to  the  king  of  France,  283. 

Berry,  Duchess  of,  her  capture  in 
Nantes,  139. 

B^ziers,  210. 

Blois,  30-43 ;  Chateau  de,  32  ;  Gas- 
ton's wing,  34;  wing  of  Francis  I., 
34;  of  Louis  XII.,  35;  the  court, 
37  ;  restoration  of,  38 ;  history  of, 
40. 

Bohier,  Thomas,  owner  of  Chenon- 
ceaux,  73. 

Bordeaux,  commercial  appearance  of, 
169  ;  the  Grand  Theatre,  171. 

Bourg-en-Bresse,  327-336;  its  location, 
328;  excellent  inn  there,  335. 

Bourges,  journey  thither,  99  ;  the  inn, 

•  101,118,  119:  cathedral  of,  103  ;  its 
construction,  104;  sculpture,  105; 
the  archiepiscopal  palace,  108;  in- 
teresting houses,  1 10 ;  general  shab- 
biness,  118. 

Brosses,  President  de,  343. 

Brou,  church  of,  described  by  Mat- 
thew Arnold,  328 ;  built  by  Margaret 
of  Austria,  330;  its  decorations, 
331  ;  tombs  of  Margaret  and  Phili- 
bert,  332. 

Bruyas,  M.,  benefactor  of  the  Mu- 
seum at  Montpellier,  222. 

Calas,  Jean,  story  of,  189. 

Canonge,  M,  Jules,  his  chronicle  of 
the  lords  of  Les  Baux,  279. 

Carcassonne,  general  effect  of,  191, 
198  ;  the  fortifications,  193 ;  restora- 
tions in  the  Cite,  195  :  history  of 
the  town,  200;  the  warden  of  the 
Cite,  202. 

Catherine  de"  Medici,  her  life  at  Am- 


348 


INDEX 


boise,  64 ;  her  ownership  of  Chenon- 

ceaux,  74. 
Chambord,   Chiteau  de,   ride  thither 

from  Blois,  44  ;  its  aspect,  47 ;  stair- 
case and  roof,  48;  its   builder  and 

owners,  50. 
Chambord,  Comte  de,  53 ;  his  foolish 

manifesto,  54. 
Charles    VII.,   first     interview     with 

Jeanne  Dare,  69  ;  his  relations  with 

Agnes  Sorel,  95  ;    his  spoliation  of 

Jacques  Coeur,    113  ;   proclamed  at 

Poitiers,  165. 
Charles  VIII.,  tomb  of  his  children, 

IS  ;  tradition  of  his  death  at  Amboise, 

63  ;  his  marriage,  89. 
Chaumont,  Chateau  de,  66. 
Chenonceaux,  Chateau  de,  ride  thither 

from  Tours,  70 ;  early  owners,  73 ; 

refitted  by  Catherine  de'  Medici,  74  ; 

present  owner,  77  ;  described,  78. 
Cher  river,  79. 
Chevery,  Chateau  de,  56-58. 
Chinon,  68. 
Clement,  M.  Pierre,  his  biography  of 

Jacques  Coeur,  112. 
Coeur,  Jacques,  his  career,  no,  112; 

his  palace,    in  ;    carving   therein, 

"5- 
Colomb,  Michel,  sculptor  of  the  tomb 

for  Anne  of  Brittany's  children,  75  ; 

also  of  that  to  her  parents,  142. 
"  Contes  Drolatiques,"  Balzac's,  9. 
"  Contes  du  Lundi,"  Daudct's,  249. 
Cujas,  his  method  of  study,  116;  his 

house,  117. 
"  Cur^  de  Tours,  Le,"  Balzac's,  7,  12, 

16. 

Dare,  Jeanne,  her  interview  with 
Charles  VII.,  69;  examined  at  Poi- 
tiers, 163. 

Daudet,  Alphonse,  212;  his  "  Tar- 
tarin,"  249. 

Daurade,  La,  church  of,  187. 

Diana  of  Poitiers,  the  ChSteau  de 
Chenonceaux  built  for  her,  69. 

Dijon,  rather  disappointing  in  appear- 
ance, 342  ;  the  palace  of  the  dukes  of 
Burgundy,  343. 

Dow,  Cierard,  his  pictures  in  the  Musee 
Fabre,  223. 


Dubois,  Paul,  his  imitation  of  Michael 

Angelo,  144. 
Dupin,     Claude,    his    ownership    of 

Chenonceaux,  76. 

Edward,  the  Black  Prince,  164 ;  his 
capture  of  Carcassonne,  201. 

Fabre,  Francois,  220 ;  his  personal 
appearance,  224. 

Fouquet,  imprisoned  at  Angers, 
133- 

Francesco,  Venetian  gondolier  in 
Chenonceaux,  71. 

Francis  I.,  his  wing  of  the  Chateau  de 
Blois,  37  ;  his  reason  for  building  the 
Chateau  de  Chambord,  50;  inter- 
viewed Charles  V.  at  Aigues-Mortes, 
237- 

Francis  II.,  his  tomb,  142. 

Franyois,  Duke  of  Montmorency,  be- 
headed by  Richelieu,  254. 

"  Gamard,  Mademoiselle,"  her  house 

in  Tours,  located,  16,  17. 
Gardon  river,  229,  243. 
Garonne  river,  170,  175  ;  Saint-Cyprien 

inundated  by,  188. 
Gaston    d'Orleans,    his    part    of    the 

Chateau  de  Blois,  34. 
"Grenadifere,      La,"     Balzac's,      10, 

II. 
Guiton,  Jean,  defender  of  La  Rochelle, 

151- 

Henry  11. ,  murderer  of  the  Duke  of 

Guise,  13;    built    Chenonceaux  for 

Diana  of  Poitiers,  6g. 
Henry  III.,  Chateau  of  Blois  his  chief 

residence,  40. 
Henry  IV.,  neglected  Chambord,  52; 

signed  the  Edict  of  Nantes,  140. 
Hopital-Saint-Esprit,  its  founder,  338; 

its  picture  of  the  Last  Judgment, 

339- 

Isaure,  Cl^mence,  foundress  of  the 
poetic  contest  at  Toulouse,  181. 

John,  Duke  of  Berry,  builder  of  the 

Palais  de  Justice  at  Poitiers,  162. 
Joinville,  Prince  of  (1591),  13. 


INDEX 


349 


La  Rochelle,  impressions  of,  147  ;  the 
Hotel  de  Ville,  151 ;  the  port, 
153- 

Lamartine,  his  statue  and  birthplace, 
325- 

Lamoriciere,  General  de,  his  tomb,  144. 

Langeais,  86-90. 

Leczynski,  Stanislaus,  king  of  Poland, 
52. 

Loches,  91-97;  situation  of ,  92;  strik- 
ing features  of,  93 ;  tomb  of  Agnes 
Sorel  at,  95  ;  village  at,  96. 

Loire  river,  5,  59. 

Louis  IX.,  embarked  for  a  crusade 
from  Aigues-Mortes,  237. 

Louis  XL,  his  hangman,  24;  his  fa- 
vorite residence,  26. 

Louis  XIL,  his  part  of  the  Chateau  de 
Blois,  35. 

Louis  XIV.,  at  Chambord,  52. 

Luitgarde,  wife  of  Charlemagne, 
buried  at  Tours,  20. 

Luynes,  Chateau  de,  87. 

Lyons,  322. 

"  Lys  dans  la  Vallee,  Le,"  Balzac's,  ic, 


Macon,  320-326;  the  inn  at,  324; 
statue  and  birthplace  of  Lamartine 

in,  325- 
Maison  Carree,  246. 
Mans,  Le,   its  location,  122;  its  inn, 

122;    quaint    houses    in,    123;    its 

cathedral,  125. 
Mansard,    Frangois,  his  architecture, 

34- 
Margaret,  Duchess    of    Austria,    her 

career,  330  ;  her  tomb  at  Brou,  333. 
Margaret  of  Foix,  her  tomb,  142. 
Marmoutier,  abbey  of,  27. 
Mary  Stuart  (Queen  of  Scots),  64. 
Monge,  Gaspard,  statue  of,  at  Beaune, 

341- 
Montmajour,  abbey  of,  275. 
Montpellier,  217-226  ;  former    health 

resort,  218;  the  Musee  Fabre,  219; 

the  Peyrou,  225. 

Nantes,  general  aspect  of,  136 ;  its 
museum,  137;  its  castle,  139;  horrors 
of  the  revolution  at,  140 ;  the  cathe- 
dral, 141. 


Napoleon,  his  disposal  of  Chambord, 
53. 

Narbonne,  first  impressions  of,  208; 
difficulty  in  finding  lodgings,  211; 
general  appearance  of,  213  ;  the  ca- 
thedral, 215;  museum  of,  216. 

Nimes,  227,  233,  240-248 ;  its  Roman 
flavor,  242 ;  Mount  Cavalier,  243  ; 
the  Roman  arena,  244 ;  the  Maison 
Carree,  247. 

Orange,  312-319;  its  history,  314; 
Roman  arch  there,  315  ;  the  Roman 
theatre,  316. 

Paris,  Comte  de,  owner  of  Amboise, 
60. 

Paris,  its  popularity  with  travelers,  1. 

Petrarch,  304,  310,  325. 

Philibert-le-Bel,  his  tomb  at  Brou, 
332. 

Plessis,  ruins  of  the  castle  of,  25. 

Poitiers,  general  impressions  of,  156; 
the  cathedral,  158  ;  Temple  de  Saint- 
Jean,  159;  church  of  Saint  Rade- 
gonde,  160;  Palais  de  Justice,  161  ; 
Promenade  de  Blossac,  163 ;  battle 
of,  164. 

Pont  du  Gard,  journey  thither  from 
Nimes,  227  ;  its  surroundings,  229 ; 
suggestive  of  Rome,  230. 

"Quentin  Durward,"  Scott's,  the  Mai- 
son de  Tristan  described  in,  24. 

Raymond  de  Trincavel,  his  siege  of 
Carcassonne,  201. 

Rene,  King  of  Anjou,  Chateau  of, 
250  ;  vicissitudes  of  his  life,  252. 

Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  picture  by  him 
in  the  Musde  Fabre,  223. 

Rhone  river,  250,  251  ;  rapid  rise  of, 
at  Avignon,  287,  302,  312,  322. 

Rollin,  Nicholas,  chancellor  of  Bur- 
gundy, 338. 

Rousseau,  Jean-Jacques,  his  descrip- 
tion of  Chenonceaux,  69. 

Saint-Benazet,  bridge  of,  at  Avignon, 

290. 
Saint-Jean,  Temple   de,  at    Poitiers, 

159- 


350 


INDEX 


Saint  Julian,  church  of,  at  Tours,  23. 

Saint  Martin,  church  of,  at  Tours,  its 
history,  19 ;  present  structure,  21  ; 
convent  of,  22. 

Saint  Radegolide,  church  of,  at  Poi- 
tiers, 160. 

Saint-Sernin,  church  of,  at  Toulouse, 
184. 

Saint  Trophimus,  church  of,  at  Aries, 
267. 

Sand,  George,  her  description  of  cen- 
tral France,  4. 

Saone  river,  322,  327. 

Scarron,  his  house  at  Le  Mans,  123. 

Simon  de  Montfort,  his  capture  of 
Carcassonne,  201. 

Sorel,  Agnes,  her  tomb,  96. 

Sorgues  river,  305  ;  its  head-spring,  309. 

Stendhal,  his  *'  M^moires  d'un 
Touriste,"  220. 

Stolberg,  Louise  de,  Countess  of  Al- 
bany, her  love  affairs,  220. 

Tarascon,  Daudet's  kindly  satire  of, 
249 ;  its  interesting  features,  250 ;  its 
people,  256. 

Teniers,  David,  his  pictures  in  the 
Musee  Fabre,  223. 


Topin,  Marius,  his  pamphlet  on 
Aigues-Mortes  quoted,  237. 

Toulouse,  journey  thither  from  Bor- 
deaux, 174 ;  a  disappointing  town, 
177;  the  people,  178;  lack  of  archi- 
tecture, 179;  floral  games  at,  180; 
the  capitol,  181  ;  the  museum,  182  ; 
the  cathedral,  186;  interesting 
houses  in,  188. 

Touraine,  the  garden  of  France,  3; 
its    picturesqueness,   5 ;     trains    in, 

Q2. 

Tours,  its  attractiveness,  3  ;  its  people, 
4 ;  the  Rue  Royal  and  the  Palais  de 
Justice,  7;  statues  of  Rabelais  and 
Descartes,  11  ;  the  Tour  de  Guise, 
12;  cathedral  of,  14;  old  houses  in, 
24. 

"Tristan  I'Hermite,"  his  house  at 
Tours,  24. 

Vaucluse,  301-311. 
Villeneuve-l^s-Avignon,  294-300. 
VioUet-le-Duc,     his     restorations    at 

Carcassonne,  195  ;  pamphlet  on  her 

history  quoted,  200. 
Voltaire,   his  championship    of    Jean 

Galas,  189. 


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Cambridge,  Mass.y  U.S.  A. 


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